Meth-heads do the craziest things!
Story from “This is True” by Randy Cassingham, with his “tagline:”
“WHEN YOU FAIL TO PLAN, YOU PLAN TO FAIL: Police in Chandler, Ariz., say the first mistake Jonathan Zaletel, 19, made was using a toaster oven to cook a batch of methamphetamine–in a clothes closet in his condo. He made his second mistake after the closet caught fire: he tried to put out the flames with water and window cleaner. When that didn’t work, they say, Zaletel went to a nearby Wal-Mart, where he bought a fire extinguisher; by the time he returned, the fire department had arrived. A sprinkler system had extinguished the fire, and Zaletel was arrested. “From the look of it, he seems pretty new at it,” a sheriff’s spokesman said of Zaletel’s drug manufacturing experience. “When you know the fire department is going to kick the door in no matter what, it wasn’t very smart on his part.” (Arizona Republic) …On the other hand, there are cops who think there’s a chance any meth-head could be smart.”
Actually, Randy knows that meth addicts can be quite intelligent; his tagline simply highlights the fact that they tend to do really crazy things when actively using. The drug changes the behavior of the addict and, in the case of meth, makes many of them appear as idiots. A few from many such stories in my archives include a woman who threatened officers with a knife and stun gun and, before being handcuffed, undressed in front of them while handling a “sex toy;” a man, with a meth lab in his car, who fell asleep at an intersection; a woman with a teenage daughter who explained to officers that she threw parties at her home and had sex with her daughter’s friends because she wanted to be a “cool mom”; a man who woke up with a headache and decided to burn his house down”and did; a legally blind man who punched his girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend with brass knuckles after an argument about parenting and then attempted to escape”by car; a man who tried to extract meth from his own urine who, after spilling solvent on himself, lit a cigarette while contemplating his next move”and started a fire that burned his arm and prompted the evacuation of a hotel; and a man who fired 12 nails from a nail gun into his head”and survived.
(Story and tagline from “This is True,” copyright 2007 by Randy Cassingham, used with permission.