SMOKING THE LEFT HANDED CIGARETTE

My mother was diagnosed with cancer in Jan. 2000. That's not what this story is about, but it's how we came upon the "bud". I'll get to that in a bit.

I am not really gung ho about making marijuana legal, although I think it is a good thought. Where I live, all of the hucklebucks drive drunk and stoned anyway, so it wouldn't make much difference. In metropolitan areas, I'm sure they're stoned on the subway and buses too, so to each his own. I've never heard of any homicidal maniac smoking pot. The true criminals are either drunk or on heavier drugs. (Or both, simutaneously.)

I don't know why they make such a big deal about driving stoned though, and this is the difference between being stoned and being drunk. You can spot a drunk driver a mile away. He is speeding, has his music loud, and generally, is not staying "in the lines". He will speed up, and slow down. Swerve to miss a deer that isn't there. On the other hand the stoned driver is driving 45 in a 65 zone, thinking to himself, "Why is everyone driving so fast?" Generally, he stays in the lines, it just takes him 2X as long to get to where he's going.

I am not a pot connoisseur. Like fine wine though, I know there are different grades. Like drinking "Georgia Moon Corn liquor" compared to Johnny Walker or the like. Red hairs, or somebody will say, "Columbian" or "Mexican" whatever. I don't know about that stuff really. I led, and still do lead a pretty sheltered life. (When it comes to the drug world. Ask me about something else.)

When my mother started losing weight rapidly, and losing her appetite, and even feeling nauseous all of the time, we all began to worry, including her. She said to me one day, "Boy, I always wanted to be thinner, but this wasn't what I had in mind." A couple days later, I can't remember whether it was a documentary or something in the paper, but the topic was medicinal marijuana. (Which sounded funny to me at the time.) I've heard of using it for Glaucoma, and other things, but cancer never occured to me. It reduces nausea, and creates, yes, something we all know and love about smoking marijuana, THE MUNCHIES!!!!

Suddenly, yesterday's pizza looks like pheasant under glass. Fishsticks taste like lobster. Canned ham when mixed with mayo suddenly tastes like tuna fish. Somebody could put deep fried catshit complete with clumping litter on a stick, and all you would say after you smoked a fattie and took a bite, would be, "Hey, you got some ketchup to go with this?"

Did you ever watch a National Geographic documentary about South American or African aboriginal tribes? They roast locusts between layers of leaves, (Like New Englanders do to Lobster in the sand) and pig out on those suckers. That's not their staple, that's their snack. They have the best weed on both of those continents. Everyone strips down to their loin cloths and fires one up.

I even have a theory about thousand island dressing and how it came to be, and here it is.

A bunch of Canadians were going camping in the thousand islands area. They drank all of their Labatt's blue, smoked most of their pot, and ate all of their food. When one of them went to the fridge again to see if there was anything that magically appeared, he said, "Man. All we have is ketchup, mayo and relish left in the icebox, what do we do, eh?" So he smokes out of his water bong filled with vodka. He looks at the three condiments and starts mixing them together. Then he takes a bite. The other campers, seeing their buddy eating this say, "Don't eat it all, give me a bite, eh?" They marvel over the delicious taste, texture, and smell. One says to the other, "Wow. You made this, eh? What are you going to call it." The other camper, perplexed for a minute says, "Where are we again?" Camper replies, "Thousand Islands, eh?" Back at him, "That's what we'll call it." They now get all royalties, including credit for the Big Mac special sauce.

So anyway, my mother acquired some mary jane, and smoked it. It wasn't from Columbia or Mexico, but rather of the Cleveland variety. I would imagine some hillbilly holed up in his trailer (you have to check this link, you will laugh your ass off) with the walls covered in aluminum foil, grow lights that could support the rainforest, and stacks of old Penthouse magazines. "I just buy it for the articles" Or something like that.

I bought her a pipe, in PA it isn't illegal to have a pipe provided there isn't any resin in it. It's not even illegal to sell a pipe. They say it's for "tobacco". Yeah. Right.

She was embarassed to smoke it. I don't blame, her. Not only was she drugged up because of the pain, here she was wasting away because she couldn't keep any food down, when she did eat. She had no appetite. I think she just pretended to be embarassed. Being a child of the sixties, she was no stranger to whacky weed. She took two hits, and said, "I don't feel anything." I was getting irritated, and it seems funny now. "Mom. Inhale. Big, deep. Like happy gas at the dentist." So she did. All of a sudden she got quiet. "Is there any pizza leftover from dinner?" My mother started gaining weight after a couple weeks of that. Plus, she got addicted to "Spongebob Squarepants". She would laugh at the parts that weren't even funny. So here I was keeper of the weed, worried that the dog would eat the "medicine" and I'd wind up following the dog around like a bad cheech and chong movie.

My mother passed away. (That's not the funny part. Duh.) My whole family was there, and later, we started cleaning up the makeshift bedroom that was the living room. (My mother wanted to be at home.)

So here, my brother, his wife to be, (even though we didn't really know it at the time), me, my sister and my other brother married to Lucifer (see earlier post entitled, "My crazy siblings") were there. Later in the evening after all the eyes were temporarily dry, (but soon to be glazed) we pondered what to do. We were sitting on the porch, and it was a warm July evening. I had an idea.

I emerged from the front door with the "Cleveland Pot". We all agreed that smoking it from a pipe sucks, so we made our own welfare bong out of a toilet paper holder, and some aluminum foil. I'm not going to go any further than that, because some dumb ass will try it and something bad will happen, and he'll say, "I read it on a website."

We rationalized, saying out loud, "Yeah, mom would have wanted us to smoke this. She never wasted anything."

We smoked it. That entire bag. We laughed, but as the supply got lower, things got amazingly and simplistically funnier. I didn't notice it until my brother said, "Oh my god, oh, sorry excu-u-u-u-u-use me." (In a Steve Martinesque style.) There was a pair of shoes in the middle of the sidewalk and he was pretending that it was really somebody standing there. It was like a bad mime show, except there was sound. It was Marcel Marceau on weed.
Without the makeup. Or the jumpsuit. Or the beret.

We laughed. My sister's paranoia even set us off laughing louder. She started pacing. "I can't breathe," She said. "Ok, ok, calm down. Now, just tell yourself, it's just the drugs, it's just the drugs." So she says out loud, "It's just the drugs, it's just the drugs." I said, "I meant to yourself, inside your head." She giggled.

We started a contest: Who could lean over the farthest witout falling over. It was hilarious. Guess you had to be there and be stoned to appreciate it. But it gets funny here.

My brother, married to Lucifer, says he's going to sleep in his minivan. They had just purchased a 6 passenger minivan, hoping to fill it with little demons in time.

(If you read the previous post from the crazy sibling file, the didn't have any babies too soon. If you are a follower of my stories, you will know that my brother and my demon-in-law can't even *uck right. )

As he was walking, you hear wretching. "Dude, did you just barf." Asked my little brother. "Yeah," he says. "I smelled the inside of my hat." So everyone is chilling out to some dumb movie, I think it was "Attack of the Mushroom People" (You have to check out that link. A japanese classic, right up there with "Godzilla" )

Every once in a while there would be this half human half mushroom on the movie. "Whoa. That's **cked up," my little brother said. We are staring at the tv, while you can hear brother number one and Lucifer taking out the bucket seating in their van to sleep in it. That was funny in itself. Then, like ants getting ready for winter, they start carrying blankets and pillows out to their van. It was one of those 90 degree nights, with lightning bugs everywhere. "The grooves where the seats sit hurt." During all of this, my brother number 2 and his wife to be, and myself are eating pizza. I don't even think I chewed it. I just bit and swallowed. So here we are eating and staring at the tv. Every once in a while you'd hear something from outside, and without blinking or ceasing to chew, somebody would say, "Did you hear that?"

What do you know. Suddenly Lucifer is at the door with all of the pillows and blankets again. Holy hell. Where's the dog whistle. How do you get this bitch to go lay down. "Oh, we're going home. Your brother can't sleep here."

We all passed out eventually. I really don't know what happened to my sister.

The next day, my father approaches me, "Was your sister smoking pot last night?" I was dumbfounded. "Uh. I dunno dad, why?" He replied, "Because I kept smelling it in my bedroom window last night."

Now, you have to know my father. He doesn't even sleep with the windows open, because he's afraid of catching a "summer cold". He sleeps in flannel pajamas on flannel sheets all year round. However, despite the fact that his window was closed means nothing. He is like the bionic man. He has extra sensory perception. He can hear a mouse fart at fifty yards. Before you light a candle, he says he can smell cinnamon. He has built in "Spidey sense."

So I just played dumb, blaming the pot solely on my sister who disappeared for half of the night anyway.

I would like to thank the city of Cleveland, home of the two headed fish, (because of all the crap they keep putting in the lake) for the four star bud that I'm sure was grown by Ohio's finest citizens.


It all played out like a Budweiser commercial, imagine this to that tune for a minute,

"(guy in background) A real American hero.
We salute you Mr. Midnight toker
Lighting up inconspicuously in conspicuous places
Laughing at nothing and everything
(guy in background) Mr. Fire up a fatty
Buying pot anywhere you can get it
Even from the trucker next door
(guy in background) stop taking methamphetamines
So fire 'em up and polish your bongs
There's a new stereotype for pot smoking dirtbags
(guy in background) all the kids are doing it

Let me just finish this story by saying that was a LONG time ago, and nobody smokes pot anymore in my family. Although my brother and his wife Lucifer could probably use it to mellow out.

Well, we all know even pot doesn't make her sit down, for Christ's sake. Maybe that would make them do somthing crazy like invite us over for Christmas for Ham sandwiches. (Just like two years ago. I starved myself all day, anticipating dinner. Yum. Sandwiches. And that goddammed fruit salad with vanilla pudding. Creative.) That bitch wrapped up a packet of chi-chi's corn cake mix and tried to pass it off as a Christmas present, at least she could've included all of the ingredients. When I get the chance I'm going to buy her a disposable douche and say "Happy Birthday".

Pot certainly wouldn't do anything for my brother's sex life. Only cheating on his wife improves that. Ew. That's a whole other story.