TIFU by overlooking one character on an edible package

Obligatory: this was actually a month ago, right after Thanksgiving Day in the US. Also, throwaway account because this is super embarrassing and I don’t want it to be tracked back to my main.

My wife (F46) and I (M48) were visiting family out of state for Thanksgiving. After the holiday, we traveled north to visit one of our kids (F21) who had just moved to the area for her first professional job since graduating. We arrived while she was still at work and planned on exploring the town while waiting for her to be ready to join us for dinner. We came across a weed shop (it’s recreationally legal in this state) and decided to pop in.

A little back story here. My wife grew up in a very liberal family. Like, parents were at Woodstock kind of liberal. They were not shy about providing a safe space for their kids and their kids’ friends experimenting with weed, acid, mushrooms, etc. I, on the other hand, grew up in a very sheltered household as far as drinking and drugs went. My mom never drank in front of us as kids. I can only remember my dad having a beer in front of me once, and there was never even any talk about drugs. I didn’t have my first sip of alcohol until I was almost 30, and it’s only in the last year that I asked my wife to shepherd me into the world of THC/CBD. (It’s medically legal where we live, and we both have cards.) All of this to say, my wife is very experienced, and I am not.

So we enter this shop - it’s spacious and clean, and has a little bit of everything. We ask the clerk to show us some edibles. He looks confused and asks what we mean. “You know, edibles, like gummies, etc…” He says, “Oh, okay,” and explains he actually just moved here from overseas to help his brother run this shop and he’s never heard that term before. He also says he’s not a native English speaker. No worries, we figure maybe it’s also a regional difference. We say “ edible,” you say “ gummies?” Anyway, he points us to a glass display case with a lot of things in it: prerolls, loose leaf, gummies, dabs, mushrooms, etc. It’s a bit overwhelming to look through. While we’re browsing, he asks us if we want to try some vapes - they have these pen condoms, so sure, why not? We take a hit of three different sample vapes while looking through the case. We end up buying two vape pens and one package of two 8mg grape edibles. Since we already had the three hits from the sample pens, we decide to save everything else for later in the weekend.

The next day, we spend all day with our daughter, shopping for things to help decorate her first apartment. Around 5pm she decides she needs a break and wants to call her girlfriend, so my wife and I decide we’ll give her space for a couple of hours and head out on our own to explore the city until 7. The town is doing a Christmas Tree Lighting ceremony in the town square, and the shops are supposed to be open late as a result, so we should have plenty to keep us busy. This seems like a good time to take the edibles. 8mg is a typical dose for us and will give us just a little buzz while we walk around.

About 45 minutes into exploring is when I first start feeling the buzz, in an oddities market no less, surrounded by weird taxidermy, old medical photos, etc. We decide to get some food and choose this old-looking diner we saw earlier that looked like it would either be a hidden gem of a place or just a place that’s always been there.

It was the latter, filled with older locals talking about local politics and trading in neighborly gossip. They kept coming and going, swapping tables with each other to form new groups. Townies being townies. It was quaint and fun to observe. The food itself was nothing to go back for, and the coffee was terrible, but it was cheap and it was fast. I’m pretty sure the only reason they could sustain those prices is because the ancient couple working the counter were the original owners, and it was a symbiotic relationship between business and proprietors - each continuing to exist only because of the existence of the other. I’m waxing poetic here, but these are the thoughts swirling through my head as we finish our meal. I was pretty sure my high was peaking in that moment. Usually, there’s a fast drop-off for me at that point, but now time is starting to slow down, and the conversation is sort of throbbing in my ears, and I keep getting surprised by the couple in the car outside who are staring at us only to realize it’s just our own reflection in the shop window that happens to line up perfectly with the windows of a car parked out front.

My wife is getting antsy - she likes to walk when stoned, and I can see on her face that she’s ready to leave the restaurant. I too have thought about leaving; however, I tell her I’m going to need a few more minutes because my legs don’t seem to work, and I’m pretty sure if I try to leave the booth, I’ll just fall over. I’ve tried moving them a couple of times, and they’re like dead weight. So we sit there some more, and my mind is kinda blank, and I’m just listening to the conversations going on around us, but they’re all swirling together, and it’s hard to focus on any one.

I realize at this point that I am really high. I’ve been that high only once before when we took 15mg instead of our usual 5-10mg. That had been a wild ride of wave after wave (coincidentally while we were at the beach), and I really wanted to get off that roller coaster after the first few peaks, but it kept going for a couple of hours. So I wasn’t looking forward to riding this out yet again.

You’re probably thinking at this point, “Oh, so the character he missed was probably a ‘1’ and he took 18mg instead of 8.” You’d be wrong.

My wife now realizes the state I’m in and is trying to talk me through it, as the wizened sage that she is. While she’s waiting me out, she decides to double-check the package because this is clearly not what we expected. 8mg, check. THC, check. Wait, why is there a “P” after the “THC”? She Googles what the “P” in “THCP” means. It stands for “phorol” as in “tetrahydrocannabiphorol”, a synthesized form of THC that is 33 times stronger than regular THC. It is legal in most states and is typically not regulated. Doing the math, my wife realizes that we have both taken the equivalent of 264mg of THC. Yikes emoji.

Soon after reading this is when it catches up to her, and now I’m trying to talk her through it, existing roughly 15 minutes in her future, as best as I can given the circumstances.

Y’all, I wish this was the worst of it, but we’re just getting started.

We’re both in the thick of it. My wife manages to tap out a text message to our daughter that we’re in a bit of trouble and could she please come get us. I’m sitting there staring into space— the restaurant has gone quiet for me; none of the conversational din is making its way through anymore. I occasionally think to test my legs out to see if they’ll move, but so far they still feel numb.

My wife is starting to overheat. She can’t figure out how to get out of her jacket, so she tries taking off her shoes. This is not going well. She ends up lying down on the bench, trying to kick her shoes off. Come to think of it, I’m hot too, but there’s no way I’m attempting to move.

A woman at the table next to us leans over and asks apologetically, “I’m sorry, I couldn’t help but notice. Is your wife alright?” I try to say, “she’s not feeling well.” I think that’s what comes out. It seems to appease the woman, who goes back to her meal.

We’ve drank all the water we had at the table, which is good because my wife now reaches for one of the cups and vomits in it. I’m panicking internally because there’s no way I can be of any help cleaning this up once it overflows. Somehow, I kid you not, she fills the one cup to the brim, stops, grabs the other cup, and starts again.

I have two thoughts:

1. That’s gross; why is no one saying anything?
2. That’s really gross; I’ll hold this napkin up in front of the two cups to shield the other customers from the sight of two vomit-filled, clear plastic cups.

And this is how our daughter finds us: me holding a napkin in front of two cups of puke and my wife with her head on the bench and shoes halfway off.

“Is that…,” she asks, eyeballing the cups. I manage a nod.

She quietly disposes of the two cups - I don’t know where or how - and asks the staff for a glass of water. “Oh, you’re with them…” they say, she will later tell us.

She tells us it’s time to go. My legs still feel numb but like they might work if given no other option, so we follow her back to the apartment a couple of blocks away, like two big stoned ducks following a baby duckling. I remember being fascinated with stairs and air. My wife had her long-sleeve shirt on over her jacket and was very excited about everything.

The next few time units are a blur. I know I end up in my daughter’s bathroom, but I have no idea for how long. All I can do is prop myself up on the sink counter. I wonder if this is what mental illness feels like and if I’m stuck here now. I keep moving my legs up and down to make sure they work. There’s a lot of vomiting and sweating. My wife has collapsed on the spare mattress in the bedroom that our daughter had set for us.

Eventually, I emerge and make it as far as the hallway between the bathroom and living room and decide that’s the best place for me to be, so I lie down there. I’m whimpering about how this can’t be real life and I’m worried that we’re being filmed and will be all over the internet the next day. Our daughter has had enough of this and decides to go for a walk. I remember her stepping around me in the hallway on her way out. It’s hilarious and tragic. I crawl to the couch next to the mattress. Neither of us can sleep. At some point, my wife gets up and vomits in the bathroom, brushes her teeth, and comes back to bed. She thinks an Altoid might help. I hear the crinkling of the cellophane and think it’s a rat come to chew her face off, so I jump off the couch and start blindly smacking the floor with a shoe. She manages to convince me it’s not a rat. I crawl back to the couch and pass out.

The next morning is hell. We are supposed to go to a high school reunion that night, but we can barely function. We finally are up for leaving the house around noon. I’m absolutely paranoid that the townies from the diner will spot us and we’ll be run out of town. I can’t believe we aren’t in jail. I can’t believe only one person said anything to us that entire time in the diner, especially after the vomit incident. How did no one notice?? How were we not front-page news?? My wife has a photo of me from that afternoon, sitting at a booth waiting for food (at an entirely different restaurant, of course), and I don’t think I’ve ever seen myself looking so haggard. We eventually make our way back to my parents’ house, skipping the reunion entirely. We fly home the next day, but our weed hangover brain-fog lasts for days.

Tl;dr: We accidentally bought THCP edibles thinking they were THC; THCP is 33x more potent; we take the equivalent of 264mg of THC; we green out while in a diner in our daughter’s new hometown,