June 15 , 2005
It's Always 4:20 Somewhere
I've made jokes about smoking the bud a few times in the past, but the truth of the matter is I almost NEVER touch the stuff. It's not that I disapprove...far from it. It's just something that's never worked for me, and usually gets me pretty sick.
I'm reminded of one time a couple of years ago that my friend Miss X came over and shared some with me...I got sick, paranoid, and my heart was jackhammering harder than a drunken frat kid taking advantage of a doped-up Nicole Richie.
My rule of thumb is that I tend to have a little bit every 2 years or so, which only serves to remind me of why I dislike it so much. This is normally preceded by my pothead friends assuring me that I only get sick because I've had some "bad shit", and that they actually have "good shit" that I should try. And really, how can you NOT trust a guy wearing a Phish T-Shirt and stinking of patchouli?
So, a few months ago, before I moved, I got a 1:30 am knock on my door. Sure enough, it was Tammy, with her 2-year-old son Danny in tow. Don't get me wrong...I love kids, and Danny's one of the cutest, sweetest 2-year-olds I've ever seen. But, I remind you, it's ONE FUCKING THIRTY in the morning.
Sure enough, she asks me for a cigarette, and being a dope, I give her one, thus ensuring that the never-ending cycle of mooching continues. She then asks me if I want to come outside and have a cigarette with her. I politely decline, and as I'm closing the door, I hear her say "Okay Danny...inside. I'll be back in a few minutes."
My door flies open so fast, you'd think that I was The Flash (Hey, I might be...you never know.)
"You're leaving him IN THERE while you go outside and smoke?" I bellow.
"I always do," she shrugs. "I'm only going to be out there for a few minutes."
This is wrong on SO many levels, I can't even begin to list them...not the least of which is that he's AWAKE and ALERT at 1:30 am. And, before you say anything, NO, I never called Child Services on her, and YES, I probably should have. There's a long story behind that, which I won't get into here.
Rather than lecture her, I sort of dumbly mumble..."Well, I'll watch him while you're out there."
So in I go to Tammy's apartment...the interior of which looks like the aftermath of an Egyptian open-air market bombing. But Danny, somehow, seemed like a bright kid, and bounded around the place, not stepping on a thing. Myself, I still have LEGO imprints in my foot. Danny hands me an uninflated balloon, I blow it up and play "bat the balloon" with him for a few minutes, which he seems to enjoy immensely. Tammy comes back and thanks me for watching him. I look at her, the revulsion on my face obviously not registering with her, and turn to leave.
"Oh Naked..." she says. I turn, and she's holding a blunt. "Here...take it. I'll never do anything with it."
And, for whatever reason, I take it.
There it sat on my desk for about a week. Taunting me...begging me to spark it up. "It'll be DIFFERENT this time," it's saying to me. "Trust me."
Finally, I relent. I tell myself that since I normally only have 3 drags or so, if I have just 1 or 2, maybe I'll be okay. Besides, I had no more work to do, and I was kind of just killing time.
SPARK...PUFF...PUFF...
Nothing.
Wait, I tell myself. It might kick in later. It doesn't.
So, for some reason, NOW I'm pissed. How DARE she give me a fucking joint and it's no good?
So, what the hell...I smoke the rest of it.
I'd really like to say that I was sick again. After all, I do not endorse the use of ANY narcotic agent, including cigarettes. I'd love nothing more than to end this with the phrase "And this is why you shouldn't do drugs, kids." Then, GI Joe would pop up behind me and say "Now you know...and knowing is half the battle!" Nancy Reagan would be sending me congratulatory emails and nominating me for the Nobel Peace Prize. I'd be the greatest anti-drug message since that Very Special Episode of Diff'rent Strokes that she appeared on.
But I can't. For the first time in my 27 years on this earth (give or take a few years) I actually ENJOYED it.
Don't get me wrong now, kids. I have no plans on indulging again, EVER. But normally, my experiences have led me to think, "What's the big deal?" NOW I know why people like it.
Although, I will confess, it had 2 very strange things happen to me.
First of all, I started reading one of my favourite blogs...The Green Arrow Blog. It's a guy who writes a journal pretending to be the superhero Green Arrow. Normally, I find it really funny...but then again, I'm a comic book nerd, so I WOULD. But I happened across this particular entry:
i need at least 3 showers
so me and connor had a slight run in with solomon grundy tonight, which we subsequently crammed in a holding cell in the watchtower. etc, etc, anyway whilst interrogating this botanical behemoth, he totally fired one off. yessireebob. it had the overwhelming bouquet of a dead skunk that had just crawled out of the ass of another dead skunk and i swear to god you could almost see it. so grundy chuckles and says, "i'll bring it up again and we can vote on it." i informed him that that was very juvenile, to which he responded by mocking my tights.
I've got nothing against the fart joke as a rule. But for some reason, whilst higher than Frank Zappa at Woodstock, I thought this was the funniest thing I'd ever read IN MY LIFE. I giggled UNCONTROLLABLY for 20 minutes. Yes, I timed it.
Would it help if you knew that this is what Solomon Grundy looks like? No, I didn't think so.
The other thing I did - which I NEVER do - is I decided to play Texas Hold 'Em online...for REAL MONEY. Yeah, you can imagine why this would be a bad idea, what with my decision making and logic skills being about as reliable as an Iraqi WMD report. Yet somehow, I managed to win over 80 bucks before tiring of it and going to sleep.
I doubt I'll do it again, but if I do, I'll be sure to do it when Spongebob Squarepants is on. Hey, maybe I'll finally understand why people like it so much.
One last thing...ever since that fateful night, every time gas has escaped my body, I've turned to Morn and said "Maybe I'll bring it up again and we can vote on it." She didn't find it funny the FIRST time, and now, after about 100 other times, she's just about ready to run me over with her car. If that happens, you'll have conclusive proof that drugs DO in fact kill...just not in the ways you might think.
