u/BadOk5020

back in a time when it cost 15 cents to send or receive a text message and playlists were burned to cds and organized in actual folders, i was maybe 19 or so. small town, not much to do, so we would, you know, go look for shrooms in cow pastures at 4am and smoke cheech and chong levels of weed and stuff.

this story takes place on a day, the 182nd day of 2009, to be exact. it was 73.4 degrees F with a 4mph southwestern wind.... nah i'm just messing with you. it was a normal day in i don't know when. i was driving from my house to my best friend's house - just across the neighborhood. i was going about 5mph while flipping through cds looking for sublime i think. i was getting frustrated because i couldn't find it, so i pushed the brakes to get a better look.

BAM

i looked over. mike's eyes were wide open and he said, "DUDE. YOU JUST RAN OVER A KID."

what? oh fuck. so i got out and ran to the back of the car, sure enough, there was this 8 year old boy on the ground next to his bike. he wasn't crying or anything, so i helped him up and brushed the rocks off of his knees. i looked up to ask if he was ok, and that was when i noticed the angry mob about 30 strong encircling me.

all the angry faces were pointing and yelling and the world was spinning in circles faster and faster until one voice pierced the deafening murmurs... it was a true wild karen, back before they were known as karens. she pointed to the back window of my car at a bunch of empty beer cans (wasn't drunk - only trash litters) and shrieked "LOOK! HE'S BEEN DRINKIN!"

that really riled 'em up. i don't even know how that many people even knew something happened, only like 30 seconds had gone by at that point. it was really weird and i can't explain it. but i began to feel like i was in imminent danger, and mike hollered at me "DUDE YOU BETTER GO OR YOU'RE GOING TO JAIL!"

i was like 19, ok, so my idea of jail was like going to prison for life basically. so i got in my car and headed out of the neighborhood. but the exit was defended by this huge dude that looked exactly like arnold schwarzenegger and he was holding a big log (as in like a cut down tree log) over his head and looking me dead in the eyes on approach. he threw the log at my windshield, but i swerved off the asphalt and dodged it.

i'm amazingly good at thinking under pressure, so i figured the best place to lose the cops would be this old country road way back in the woods of rural alabama. it snakes through the edge of the wilderness, branching off into many unnamed roads with no signs and massive potholes and structural damage. at one point, there's an incredibly steep drop in the road, it's so steep you couldnt stop with the brakes mashed to the floor and the parking brake set, you're basically freefalling.

i made it about a mile or two, then i got stuck in a mud pit in the road. i was alternating drive and reverse, attempting to get out of the mud. the instant i got free of the mud trap...... ran out of gas. i started throwing all the beer cans from the back seat to the woods, but then i heard a bunch of sirens and they were getting closer.

i bolted into the woods away from the dirt road. i looked back, the whole armada came skidding to a stop in a maelstrom of flashing blue lights inside a massive dirt cloud. i hurried up and sat down right where i was, which was about less than a foot away from an ant pile, and i covered my legs with leaves and pulled my hoodie over my head (luckily it was brown).

i didn't move a muscle for hours...... probably didn't even blink for a long time. didn't react when ants were biting me. i had only made it about 50 feet into the woods, if that, so i was listening to the cops conversate the entire time. there was this rookie cop, he was showing my 2 foot tall skull bong that he found in the trunk to another cop, and he was like "well, i found this bong and this fake pot leaf, so i don't if he was drunk or stoned or what" yeah. for real.

the k-9 unit showed up. i'm like oh fuck, i'm doomed. but you see i had thrown all those beer cans on the other side of the road. and i guess the dogs just followed my scent that way, with the beer cans. they never even looked on the side where i was at, right underneath their noses, listening to them talk.

they eventually got bored though and they all started to leave. then there was just 1 left, the guy who i guess got the short straw and was waiting for the tow truck. they came and towed my car out of the woods and left. it was almost dark, but i walked about 5 miles home. every time i saw headlights coming, i'd jump into the bushes and hide in case it was the cops. i figured there would be a manhunt looking for me.

well i got home and my grandma convinced me to turn myself in, so the next morning i apprehensively called 911 and was like "yo, that was me that ran over that kid and got away from the cops last night in the woods, i saw y'all with the k9 unit and everything, i'm at home now, so come and get me. i give up."

i mean, i honestly believed i was going to spend the rest of my life in prison at that point. my entire life was over. that was it. so long, folks. i totally resigned to my fate. except nobody showed up for like 3 hours. longest 3 hours of my life. they sent the fat cop that brings a dozen donuts with him to get my statement.

i told them everything, about how i saw them talking about my bong, about the weed i had in my bedroom and how i got stoned all the time, about the time i threw a pancake at the back of some kid's head at 5th grade cafeteria breakfast (with syrup on it) (which started a massive food fight), how i got away from the cops and walked home, all kinda shit.

you know what happened dude. he wrote me a fuckin ticket. for leaving the scene of an accident. no drug stuff. no underage alcohol stuff. no nothin. leaving the scene. say what. dude, man. they printed a story in the newspaper - it was on page 16, it was like half a paragraph long in the middle of the page in tiny print. and it said:

"mr. badok5020 left the scene of a minor accident in blah blah, alabama, but was tracked down and brought to justice by the heroic sheriff's deputies"

what the literal fuck. i was flabberghasted... gobsmacked..... i couldn't believe the lies i was reading. these motherfuckers were just circle jerking each other off, totally incapable of admitting that a teenage ran from them and got away. and turned his own self in because they couldn't find him. man, i really felt disrespected by that. and still do! wtf! people should know of my uhh... what's that word i'm looking for. uhhhh. jeez. i don't know. you'll have to guess. because i don't know. fuck. anyway that's the end.

oh wait! no it's not! i talked to the kid the next day. he was fine. what had happened was, he was following my car on his bike, trying to make his front tire rub against my bumper because it made a cool sound. and when i hit the brakes, he ran into me and fell down. that was it. i don't know where the fuckin' angry mob came from, or how they all found out and got there so fast. like, i can't explain it, to this day.

and i don't know if you've ever been the target of an angry mob, but it's really scary. for real. all they lacked was torches and pitchforks and it would've been a proper witch hunt,.... a public execution: kkk in the woods, crucifixion style. man. that's pretty scary stuff. trust me..... i know.