Saturday, October 10, 2009

This Bud's For You



We were walking the other day through a tucked-away little alley and approaching a small knot of teenagers when the sweet smell of pot drifted our way. Smells have a way of transporting you back to very specific times in your life, and this one did, too. Unfortunately, it reminded me of a time in my life I don't remember very well, so nostalgia never really got a foothold. Still, I was favorably disposed, until we drew closer and I saw that the teenagers had become very quiet and one of them was trying on a look of dignified defiance, and I realized we were the Encroaching Old Farts. "Want me to freak them out?" Dave asked, and I said "no," but as we passed them by Dave let out: "we used to pay fifteen bucks an ounce for that." I think he's still chuckling.

It's not entirely true, of course. What we paid fifteen bucks an ounce for was similar to compost in appearance and effect, and once you'd carded out all the seeds on your LP jacket, it still took a good bit of puffing to get anywhere. The first time I tried it I was fourteen and camping out on Old Rag Mountain, far from my parental units. That's what you get when your club chaperone is a college freshman. There was no effect that time, or the time after that, but the third time, a bunch of us were driving somewhere and the light a block up ahead turned red and it seemed to take us half hour to get up to it. "Whoa," the driver said upon reaching the intersection, and that struck all of us as high comedy. We giggled for a couple hours, or possibly a couple minutes, I'm not sure, and then we had to go get brownie hot fudge sundaes just to settle down.

Every time I noticed I was stoned, what I really noticed was that I had been stoned for the last five minutes. Time seemed to have developed a degree of elasticity. At some point, after a few years of this, my brain began to be alarmed by its own elasticity and it began to play around with the idea of going completely nuts and just getting it all over with. This wasn't pleasant. I had my sanity by a thread, and I tethered it to any friend I could draft to stay put and not leave me. He or she would hang onto the thread while my brain kited around in Looneyville. After an hour or so (or possibly five minutes, I'm not sure) the threat would subside. Then, a few days later, someone would be passing around another joint, and I'd do it all over again. This continued on and off for about ten years. Why?

Well, because there were a lot of truths my generation held to be self-evident, and among these truths was that war was evil, materialism was evil, doing laundry was over-rated and pot was harmless. Everyone knew these things. I regarded every single pot-induced panic attack as an anomaly. "Maybe this time it will be fun again," I would think. Nope. We didn't notice that we smelled, either.

Then the war folded up, immediately followed by our idealism, and we discovered how much fun money is, and we bought a lot of new toys and some really big-ass automobiles, destroyed the climate and the economy and loused everything up in general for our children. I don't know how they're able to afford the new pot, but they're welcome to it. We owe them that, at least.

16 comments:

  1. Hmmm. I had similar experiences, laugh a lot, lose my mind, hope someone rescues me in time to find it, then do it all over again next time. Finally decided my mind was crazy enough, I didn't need to help it!But you're right about the waft of weed..I breathe deeply then.

    ReplyDelete
  2. Wow! This is the most succinct summing-up of the Baby Boomer generation I've ever read.

    I wasn't into this but a moment when I suddenly experienced a fantastic contact high - well for the five minutes that passes in that few seconds before paranoia kicks in. What was it about traffic lights - I thought it was just me - oh the hours that passed before the green light. I don't have the time or inclination to get high - to much to do for this first-year Gen-Xer cleaning up the mess the Boomers left behind.

    Again, let me just say, you are brilliant.

    ReplyDelete
  3. TR and Susan commenting on Murr's blog, sometimes my world comes together in these beautiful knots all intertwined and I love it so much.
    I second Timmo's comment, Murr, brilliant!
    Dry eyeballs, pounding headache, screaming paranoia, noooo thanks, more trouble than it's worth. Not to mention memory loss and voracious munchies. Got those covered, don't need help!

    ReplyDelete
  4. Oh, yeah, the time flowing like molasses on a cold day experience. I remember reaching for a doorknob when I was suddenly aware of my hand making incremental progress, a millimeter at a time. Eventually, I touched the knob, which touched me back. Around 12 years later, I managed to turn it; it took another dozen to get inside.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Look at that! Three FOJs and a J! As far as I can tell, half my readership is FOJs and I'm honored.

    How young do you have to be to count yourself out of the boomer fold?

    ReplyDelete
  6. Hmmmm. Pot never made me panic, and I still think it's more fun than any other drug or liquor I've ever consumed. Guess I'm just old-fashioned. And I don't own a car.

    ReplyDelete
  7. I could never get my husband to quit so I left. It came in handy, though, when I did chemo. Frankly, I always loved it. I have two friends who suffer from neuropathy and they get medical weed. I hit them up from time to time when I am in the mood to get creative. I get all my best decorating ideas that way. Or landscaping. I found it helpful with writing, too. Just ideas, not the actual task.

    ReplyDelete
  8. I have a friend who likes to get stoned and clean. Really clean. Toothbrush around the faucet clean. Polish cabinet knobs clean. Pull cat hair out of the carpet with tweezers clean.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Weed never affected me that way. Just made me feel stupid. Must have been the cheap stuff.

    Christmas Trees, though, that was a whole different story. Instant OCD, for dayss. I once spent an entertaining 8 hours taking my pulse every ten minutes and making a graph, to see how much it cranked me up. (I was infected with Statistics 101 at the time.) Wish I could focus like that now.

    ReplyDelete
  10. This is the best and first post on pot I've read in the blogosphere. I knew and grew with a lot of potheads but for reasons I do not know, I never smoked a joint. I took one drag and it didn't do a thing for me.

    Instead, I chose another form of self-destruction and smoked cigarettes for over 30 years.

    ReplyDelete
  11. Cleaning on weed?!? If only. I do my best work on candy corn.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Five minutes, or five hours, what's the difference... chocolate cake! what,




    chocolate cake.

    ReplyDelete
  13. Fugatives of Justice? Fresh Orange Juices?

    Oh wait. I get it.

    ReplyDelete
  14. Fugatives of Justice? Fresh Orange Juices?

    Oh wait. I get it.

    ReplyDelete
  15. I have a friend who likes to get stoned and clean. Really clean. Toothbrush around the faucet clean. Polish cabinet knobs clean. Pull cat hair out of the carpet with tweezers clean.

    ReplyDelete
  16. Wow! This is the most succinct summing-up of the Baby Boomer generation I've ever read.

    I wasn't into this but a moment when I suddenly experienced a fantastic contact high - well for the five minutes that passes in that few seconds before paranoia kicks in. What was it about traffic lights - I thought it was just me - oh the hours that passed before the green light. I don't have the time or inclination to get high - to much to do for this first-year Gen-Xer cleaning up the mess the Boomers left behind.

    Again, let me just say, you are brilliant.

    ReplyDelete