If I told you something very odd, would you believe it to be true?

A pal of mine was just acquitted of murder charges. :(

Just found out, don't know the particular details yet, but this was why I hadn't heard from her. :(

I was a journalist in the US for more than 20 years. If your friend is, indeed, innocent, I am heartened to know that our justice still works.

:(

Let's just say she was being persecuted for her religion.
No, she didn't kill anybody, that's for certain. :)

What is wrong with the world today?

Just kidding. But what you said sounds like something that could very easily have happened. And believing it involves no sacrifice. I am not supposed to send money for her defense fund or goto a rally to protest the injustice. So why not believe it?

the bizarre stories I'm usually told generally involve something like a friend of mine dropping acid in Times Square and wandering in a circle lost for hours, only to find out 15 minutes really passed. Or my sister seeing a bizarre donkey-moose eating a bush in our backyard (probably just a super-big whitetail).

Of course, my friends and I once saw a wallaby-jackrabbit-deerdog hop up a cliff in the middle of nowhere late one night. I swear to God we were only under the influence of three drinks each at the bar a couple hours earlier. It ran in front of her car and just bounded up the cliff. It had a long skinny tail and body, super-long spindly legs, a long face and floppy ears and it hopped like a wallaby. It actually looked just like that animal that some farmers in Texas shot a couple months ago. We stopped the car and sat in the road for a good five minutes just saying "what the fuck was that?" over and over again. I wanted to follow it into the woods, but she wouldn't let me. It was not a hallucination, deer, fox, or coyote. I've run into all of those and it was none of those animals or a shared hallucination. I still have no clue what it was that night, but I should write a letter to Weird NJ about it. The funniest explanation I was given for it was from a chef I worked with (in NJ tough-guy Italian accent)..."Well, ya know, there's like lots of weird Satanic rituals and shit out there. Weird shit and weird people. I don't like ta fuck round out there. Jackson whites & shit. Don't surprise me."

He also was prone to screaming, "yo, you pull this shit again and I'm gonna go down there and open up a can of fuckin' whoopass on all you fuckin' clownies. Do you understand you fucking clownie?" over the phone to at least one supplier a day. As long as you weren't in a fight with him, he was awesome to work with. Hell if he was pissed off at you though. I kind of miss working with him. When I quit that natural foods store and the owner was a complete fucking ass to me, he consoled me by calling my cell and telling me, "yo, Paul's a dick. Someone needs to open some fuckin' whoopass on that asshole. You come in when he's not workin' and I'll hook you up with some scallops and shit." That was the whole conversation. He does hook me up with scallops & shit when Paul's not working though.