This fuck up did not happen today; the day in question was several Easters ago.
I was raised in a strict Catholic house. My mother was the principal of the local Catholic elementary school. I was a good Catholic boy. I never missed a Sunday mass until I went to college. That is when my beliefs changed and I never went after that. Fast forward several years. I'd moved to a different state and rarely made it home for more than a day trip. This Easter in question was different though. I was planning on spending a few days with my parents as my father had been quite Ill.
The visit was going well. It was really nice to reconnect and spend time in my childhood home. At the end of the first day I began to get a little antsy, so I began digging through some old things in the basement. Just a quick stroll down memory lane. As I was getting sentimental I thought that I'd have a beer. My father kept an old refrigerator in the basement. Usually there was a six pack crammed it there along with all the food my mother horded. When I opened up the refrigerator I was greeted with the smell of cold slowly rotting food. My father's sickness was pretty severe. He was in various hospitals and assisted living facilities around the Midwest receiving treatments for over a year. My mother stayed with him. As I had the time, I started cleaning out the fridge and freezer.
It was gross work. But I'd seen worse. Once the stinky stuff was out it was actually kind of fun. There was some horribly old food in that freezer. I began trying to find the oldest item. Whilst in the middle of my game I found a little scrunched up paper bag. Ordinarily I would have just tossed it, but I was looking for something to beat the bratwursts that were on the cusp of puberty. So I opened the bag to peer inside. I saw what looked like Valentine's day chocolate hearts wrapped in red foil. About to throw the bag away my memory flickered just a bit. Something was familiar about those chocolates. It took a few seconds but recollection set in. I had stumbled across my old stash of mushroom chocolates. At first I laughed, then I was terrified. What if one of my parents had eaten them or one of my nieces or nephews. I couldn't believe the carelessness of my youth.
Unsure what to do with the chocolates I set them aside and finished the job. My visit went on in an enjoyable fashion. That is until the night before Easter. I had no intentions of going to mass but my mother was laying the guilt trip on pretty hard. So I relented and agreed. Now for those of you non Catholic readers Easter midnight mass can be a real production. There can be baptisms, food drives, long musical numbers and enough creepy fire and brimstone talk to give Steven King a chill. To make the situation even more unnerving my mother would be singing with the choir and my father would be ushering. So I would be by myself.
It was at this point that I got an idea. I got a horrible idea. I thought if I can't drink during mass maybe I could eat a chocolate. For those of you inexperienced with mushrooms a mushroom trip is not the visual cornucopia that it is depicted as in movies. It's more like putting your ego to sleep and popping the hood on your personality. You can almost see how your mind works. The experience is also greatly influenced by your surroundings. I generally prefer being surrounded by nature while on mushrooms (for some reason it makes me feel like I'm Link from Zelda).
So as we left for mass, a full hour early, I popped a chocolate in my mouth. Surprisingly it tasted just like I remembered. For the first hour I sat by myself in a pew listening to the choir of old gals waver out some old hymns in shrill breathyness. It had been an hour since I ate the chocolate and I thought I felt something small happening. Unsure about the viability of such old specimens I popped another chocolate.
I could not have timed it better. The first wave hit me as the procession entered the church. I was filled with thoughts of amazement regarding the Catholic religion. It seemed to me that it was almost a for gone conclusion for humanity to make such an organization. I saw beauty in it. Some time passed. Time is relative on mushrooms. So who knows how long I sat there with a stupid grin on my face. The happy feelings we're not meant to last though. It was when the priest had the babies brought to him as he stood at the base of a small marble pool that it turned on me. Why were these parents willingly giving their beautiful babies to this man who wished to submerge them. The little mouths of the babies convulsed so horridly that sound was an afterthought. One by one they plunged the babies. And one by one they returned to the surface baptized in terror.
I was uncomfortable at this point but still more or less in control. That was about to change though. The second chocolate must have started it's work because the experience jumped in intensity. Just in time for the readings and homily. It was a wild ride full of beheadings, incestuous implications, people being banished to eternal torment for things beyond their control. These people were monsters! I was raised by monsters! I am a monster! As terror fully gripped me the congregation fell to their knees and began praying over the human blood and flesh they were about to eat.
I lost it at that point. I ran out of the church. I'm assuming I made a commotion because my father came out to look for me. When he found me I was done for. My face was covered in tears and a shouted something at him along the lines of "you're all monsters!" as I ran into the night. I made it back to their place as it was only a few blocks away and put myself to bed.
The next morning my parents acted as nothing had happened. It was beyond awkward. Just as I was getting up to excuse myself from Easter breakfast my mother casually handed me a schedule of confession times.
My poor parents.
TL;DR - Found some old fungi and went head to head with Catholism while my parents bore witness.
Submitted June 08, 2017 at 09:21AM by Choooooo_Choo http://ift.tt/2r7VMb2 tifu
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