Pullin’ Weeds

I hate weed.

Actually, I hated weeding when I was a kid. It was one of my “childhood chores” I had to perform when my Old Man was home on the weekends.

And ya know no matter how hard I tried, I could never get all of the damn stuff out of the ground. There would always be roots or leaves left stuck in the soil no matter how I pulled or cursed at those little blights of agriculture.

I still have nightmares of me schlepping my little plastic bucket around in our backyard, eyes blinded by the hot sun, sweat running in rivulets down my back, my parched throat. “Ah, I thirst. Water! Water!”

But hey, remember that first Schwarzenegger “Conan” movie? The one where he’s captured as a child and forced to push a grindstone in circles for years?

The movie flashes forward twenty years later and suddenly Arnold goes from this scrawny-looking kid into this He-Man with ginormous muscles and a thirst for vengeance.

Well, I call bullshit…

If these invading barbarians had wanted to teach Conan a lesson they should have turned him over to my Old Man. Heck, I bet pulling weeds for my father would have broken young Arne in just a day!

But I digress… 

Anyway, years later my relationship with “weed” would drastically change.

I would no longer be pulling weeds, I’d be smoking it.

Of course, this was back in the day when you could buy a lid (which was a small baggie of weed) for about ten bucks.

Yessir, in the 1970’s a bag of pot would cost you what most folks spend on a Starbucks Frappuccino today. And despite it being mostly stems, seeds and occasionally  oregano –  the stuff would get you high.

All you needed was a lid and some Bambu Rolling papers and you were ready for party time.

Ah, but I had a little problem, you see.

Being of a somewhat nervous temperament smoking weed was often a spin-the-wheel experiment.

Often I would experience severe paranoia and heightened anxiety while toking on a joint or sucking on a bong with my friends.

And there would be no way for me to vocalize my feelings of impending doom cause that would have been considered very “uncool.”

I remember one time I thought I had inhaled hot coal from a pipe and that it was still burning in my lungs. To rectify the situation I proceeded to drink gallons of tap water in an attempt to put the fire out.

Then there was another time I went to a late-night party up in the hills of Los Altos after working a late shift at the pizza job I had during college.

I didn’t know anyone there except a couple of coworkers who tagged along with me.

The place was a nouveau-rich kinda place with wall-to-wall white shag carpeting with lots of marble and chrome furnishings.

It was supposed to be a party, but for some strange reason, the atmosphere was strangely subdued.

At first, I thought there might be some adults lurking in another room because everyone there seemed to be quiet and sitting in a circle. 

My only clue that I hadn’t been tricked into a prayer meeting was the heavy smell of Nag Champa incense and skunk weed that seemed to hover like a miasma over the dimly lit room.

So I caught a squat on an ottoman and was immediately handed a joint which I took a polite drag on and handed it off to a long-haired dude who was wearing dark sunglasses sitting to my right. He passed it to another person who passed it on down the line till eventually it came back to me. I took another hit and then handed it back to the guy with the shades.

It went around the circle a bunch of more times with each person just handing it to the person next to them.

It soon became apparent that I was the only one toking on this shit. No one was smoking.  It was just a bunch of people sitting around like zombies listening to a scratchy version of Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on a record player.

About after my fifth hit on the joint I became aware of creeping paralysis that began to make its way up my legs to the top of my head.

“Uh, say, friend,” I said to Shades. “I’m starting to feel funny.”

“Good shit, ain’t it?” he said.

“Yeaaaaah,” I said, feeling my mouth go suddenly numb.

“I hope you like to get high?” he said.

“Whyuh iz dat?” I garbled.

“Because if you don’t….I feel sorry for you!” he said.

“Ohhhh…nooooo…” I said, before passing out.

I awoke several hours later in the front seat of my car feeling bruised and sore. After picking bits of white shag carpeting out of my mouth, I noticed I had a note on my car windshield under one of the wipers.  

The note said  – “Chuck, we caught a ride home with one of the guys from the party who could still drive. We couldn’t wake you up – so we put you back in your car. See ya at work, Lightweight! Ha! Ha! PS We had a hard time carrying you back cause Jerry was kinda drunk. So we ended up dropping you a bunch of times. Sorry. Don’t be mad!!”

***

Now while this all may sound like some awful clips from the cult movie “Reefer Madness.” I have to say my adventures with weed weren’t all bad.

And sometimes the stars were in alignment and my constitution jived with the dope I ingested with my friends.

I can remember gasping for air as tears of laughter ran down my face as a group of us attempted to place a midnight order at the local Jack n’ the Box.

This was of course in the early days, when Chez Jack was challenging McDonald’s with its bizarre cartoonish plastic Jack n’ the Box heads that would take your order as you drove through the hamburger stand.

Our little late-night comedic scene played out like the following:

A beat-up lime green 1970 Gremlin Hatchback chugs up to the Jack n’ the Box order stand. The car loudly backfires and shudders to a halt. Windows roll down as clouds of pungent smoke billow out comingling with a strong smell of burnt automotive oil:

Jack: “Your Order, Please?”

All four of us in the car: “Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Jack: “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch that.”

Driver: “We would like…Ha! Ha! Ha!”

Jack: “Uh…your order, please?”

Driver: “Shut the fuck up back there…I’m trying to place a…Ha! Ha! Ha! fuckin order!!”

Jack: “I beg your pardon?”

Me: “Order me a…Ha! Ha! Ha! Chocolate Shake…and whoa…Look man, they got onion rings.”

Jack: “One Chocolate Shake. What else?”

Me: “Hey! I ain’t done ordering. I want a Chocolate Shake!”

Jack: Two Chocolate Shakes?”

Me: “What? No. Yeah okay. Sure.”

Tom in the backseat: “Big Mac me buy.”

Everybody: ?!!

Jack: “Uh, we don’t serve Big Macs, sir. How about a Double Cheeseburger?”

Me: “Did I order yet?”

Jerry: I’ll take a Filet o’ Fish sandwich.”

Driver: “This is McDonald’s, moron. They don’t have Filet o’ Fish sandwiches.”

Jerry: “If this isn’t McDonald’s …then where the hell are we?”

Me: (snickering) “Arby’s.”

Jack: “This is Jack n’…

All of Us in Car: ARBEEES?! BWAHAHAHAHA!!”

Jack: “Sigh.”

*** 

Now when I was in College, weed often had bitchin’ names like Thai Stick or Panama Red.

I can remember once, before going on Spring break from school, I was sold some pot called “Mohawkin,” which I think was a mispronunciation of the word “Moroccan.” 

But whatever it was…it sounded cool.

Ricky “Cool Breeze” Vee, was a weed connoisseur and my dorm roommate back then, advised me that this stuff was a creeper – which meant it took a while for the high to “creep” up on ya after smoking it.

“Go slow, Chuck, ’cause this shit will kick your ass,” he cautioned.

“Okay,” I said, handing over the cash. “Just sell me a couple of joints then and I’ll let ya know how it goes.”

So, I left school, drove back home and hid the rolled joints in a matchbox, and forgot about it.

One night, my younger brother, Matt, confessed to me that he had never smoked pot.

“Well, let us summon a Minstrel and immortalize this moment in a song,” I said, lighting up.

So we smoked the first joint.

Nothing.

“Am I supposed to feel anything?” he said.

So, we lit up the second joint and started watching Johnny Carson on TV.

And then… 

the…

munchies hit.

***

The next day my Mom complained that there was no food left in the house.

“Who would eat an entire jar of pickled herring and peanut butter?” she said.

Matt and I didn’t say a damn thing about the matter.

Our gastric distress and frequent trips to the bathroom were confessions enough to the crime.