Your parents have probably warned you not to take candy from strangers, but they never said anything about buying cups of soda from strange old men at Bumbershoot.

Late Monday afternoon, Sally*, a senior at Holy Names Academy, and a few of her friends entered the main stage area of Bumbershoot. Like every other teenager there, they were excited for the performances of Lupe Fiasco and Wu Tang. They got in line for a drink at the concession stand on the field. A scruffy white male with dreadlocks was stalking up and down the concession lines carrying three cups of soda, offering them to people in line. “Wanna buy a pop?” he offered Sally. Succumbing to her own thirst, Sally bought a soda from the dreadlocked man who was standing with his shorter white friend, cups in hand.

Sally continued towards the concert with her friends, gulping her soda, anticipating the bands that were about to start. She meandered through the crowd, finding more of her friends and settling in with them at a place close to the main stage. Within a blink of an eye, the rest of her night became a fuzzy nightmare. Past this point, Sally can only recall random bits of her night. A memory flashes of a paramedic taking her blood pressure, “You need to get a parent here immediately,” the medic told Sally. At the time, Sally didn’t understand why everyone was trying to help her. She pushed the medic off of her, claiming she was okay. To everybody around her, it was evident that she wasn’t.

The only clues Sally has of that Monday at Bumbershoot are the blanks that have been filled in by her friends who trying to take care of her. Later in the night, Sally’s friends found someone to take her home. She recalls stumbling out of the van and her parents rushing out of the house.

“My parents were like, ‘What is happening?’” Sally recalls. “They knew I wasn’t drunk because I didn’t smell like alcohol, but they had no idea what was wrong with me.” Up in her room, Sally ‘woke up’ for a minute, snapping out of the blurry daze she had been in and called all her friends to ask what had happened. Her friends all mentioned the suspicious soda she drank.

The next day at school, gaps of the night before were filled by girls had seen her. Sally tried to piece together her night.

“I saw you hooking up with some older black guy near the bathrooms,” said one of her classmates. Others saw her vomiting while her friends tried to carry her. Sally racked her brain for any recollection of these events, but she could only vaguely remember random bits, like when the medic was trying to help her, and when she left her soda cup in a bathroom stall.

One of Sally’s classmates ran up to her in the hall. “Sally, oh my god, I heard about what happened to you last night,” she said. “The same thing happened to my friend at Bumbershoot on Sunday night. She bought a soda from some random guy and then she was puking all night.” Sally began to question the events of the night before. Were there worse details of her fuzzy night then possibly hooking up with some random guy?

Sally confided in her parents everything she knew from the night before. Like any other concerned parents, they wanted her to call the police. Sally was too nervous, so instead she wrote them an anonymous letter reporting the man who sold her the soda. In order to find some more answers to her night, Sally decided she would go to Planned Parenthood. “I sat outside of Planned Parenthood in my car, but I couldn’t go in,” she says. “I don’t think I really want to know what happened.”

The mystery of Sally’s night can be traced back to the cup of soda that was sold to her that afternoon. Sally, her friends, and her parents are still unsure what was in her drink but the biggest assumption is that a Rohypnol was placed in it by the sellers of the soda. Rohypnol, more commonly known as a Roofie, is a day sedative that is undetectable when diluted in a drink. Roofies are commonly linked with cases of sexual assault and rape. Sedation begins to occur after about twenty minutes, and blackouts and amnesia will occur for the next several hours. These symptoms are similar to those Sally experienced on Monday night. However, unless they go through drastic measures to find answers, Sally and her family will never actually know what was in her drink.

For Sally, Monday night is a night she would like to forget about. She no longer asks her friends to fill in the blanks about her night because she’d rather not be reminded of the horrors that may or may have not happened. Sally learned her lesson and she has advice for other girls who may be in similar situations, “Definitely do not buy drinks from strangers, or accept anything. Never let your friend go someplace alone, even if she’s just going to the bathroom. You should always stick with a friend.” In the future, Sally will follow her own advice, and all other girls should follow suit when in unfamiliar situations.