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I used to take DXM (cough syrup) for kicks. Most people I told thought this was really ghetto, but I wasn't doing it because I was cheap. I really liked it. I cut down on it after having an insane experience taking a slightly higher than normal dose. DXM has plateaus, so slightly more drug can significantly intensify the effect.

I tried to keep my weirdest experience short, but I lingered to five paragraphs, so the cliff's notes are that I took DXM and got stuck in a once in a lifetime storm.

The strangest thing that happened to me was probably getting stuck in a once in a century flood while just coming up. My sister and I were going to meet some friends and we made a spur of the moment decision to guzzle a bottle each. While we waited for the bus a crazy, but surprisingly young (30ish) cat lady started warning us about the incoming storm, and we told her that it was only on the horizon and probably wouldn't even make it to our end of the city. She insisted we were in for a doozie and that she was going to go home, gather "all [her] cats" and sit in the bathtub with the door closed. I guess we weren't the only weirdoes out that day.

Moments before we got on the bus it started to sprinkle, but within 5 minutes (of our 10 minute bus ride) it was pouring like I'd never seen before. We were dressed for a summer day, so when our stop came we decided to stay on the bus until the station and wait out the rain. The water was already filling the streets, and we didn't get another 6 blocks before even the bus was stopped by the flooding.

The water got up to 3 feet deep in the intersection, and hail started hammering down. Things got even weirder as the tension on the bus increased - the cat lady was telling the driver that she had known this was coming and her cats must be so scared. Then the deaf lady we were sitting beside tried to find out from the driver when the bus would be moving again. "Who knows lady?" My sister placated her by signing about animals, apparently the only thing she remembered from her sign language class. Then the DXM really hit.

I don't mean that we started to get high, because we were already [censored], but the syrup does bad things to your stomach. Right around the time you start to really feel it in your head and body, you also feel it in your bowels. Meanwhile we're stuck on a bus in the middle of a temporary lake, with nothing but a deaf lady and the sound of torrential downpour to keep us company. Balancing hard decisions between [censored] your pants and travelling on foot through a flood isn't easy when your mind is slowly drifting away from your body, but my sister and I figured a ten minute window was about all we could handle.

Thankfully rain like this can't last forever, and about five minutes after our ultimatum the hail abated, the rain slacked off, and the bus lurched forward. We made it to the station at the mall, took care of business, and took advantage of the festival atmosphere created by the flooding that had already collapsed part of the roof. We asked a shopkeeper to dress our feet in bags and tape and walked to our friend's house. It was a strange trip, with everyone being friendly in a small town sort of way that could only happen as often as this flood. We cut through yards without thinking twice, and were greeted by dozens of people who found our makeshift galoshes ingenious.

When we finally made it to our destination we found our friends high on acid saying, "We did this. We cursed the sky and dared God to make it rain!" Rain it did.