A Slice or Two at Lunchbreak

     A neighbor asked me the other day why I smoke so much weed all the time.

    "It's a long story," I replied.

    "I'm listening---"

    I really didn't have an answer ready on the spot.

    "There are so many reasons. I don't know how to explain: did you ever used to smoke?"

    "Yeah; I used to be a big pothead. I'd smoke an eighth a week."

    Wow, I though, as I stood there finishing the third gram of that day's slice, while the sun set behind him.

    "Yeah, I used to smoke a lot when I was younger too... (at this point my mind drifts off to the story I am about to tell, my eyes mist up, and I just wanna smoke another eighth, listen to music and relive it) but then I started drinking more over the years instead, drinking too much during the pandemic, before they had legal weed."

    

    Truth to tell one of the inescapable causes of my perpetual reefer madness is nostalgia, an impossible wish to relive the spring of 2001, right before I turned seventeen. Spaced out on acid I had gotten kicked out of high school for a few months. During this time I did practically nothing, spoke to almost nobody, rarely went outside, went for days without eating or sleeping, then debauched on junk food and slept for days. And all week I wouldn't drink or smoke or get high.

    But once a week, I would go back to my school, bumming a cigarette first in Harvard Square, and talk to some of the kids I knew while they were on lunch break. I would wait as long as I needed until one of the preppy jocks that dealt $50 1/8's of indoor kind bud showed up; which was inevitable, but the sooner the better to grab an eighth, or sometimes a quarter, catch the 77 bus and make it home in time to see re-runs of NewsRadio. Back then you couldn't just stream your favorite show whenever you wanted to. But I swear that was the funniest, best written show ever, even more than Seinfeld or The Office.

    Maybe it was the weed. Back then it didn't come with strain name and terpene analysis on the Glad sandwich baggies it came in, but I would say this stuff was indica leaning and caryophyllene dominant, as far as I can tell from measuring my memories against all the legal flower I've tried in the past couple years. If anyone has any info on what strains were grown and sold in Boston's black market in the early 00's, I would love to have it: I would buy your book or pay to watch a documentary on Prime.

    But as it is the weed was good; the best I could find consistently in those days. I have never used a grinder, but back then they really weren't around. I would meticulously break up the herb very fine with my God-given digits and pack my bong. There weren't smoke shops in every city square then. My friend who had turned 18 went to a headshop in Boston and bought himself a glass bowl. He got me a slide piece, with a metal stem and a huge, wooden bowl. I would immediately start breaking up more weed as soon as I finished that giant bowl...I would just go nuts and smoke a quarter ounce sometimes in two hours, clouding my mom's livingroom completely in smoke; then open the windows and air it out before she got home from work.

    One time I started laughing at something on NewsRadio, and the show went to commercial, for those who know what that is, and when the show came back on, I was still dying laughing, it was so funny! And it wasn't a short break either, it was a regular length commercial break. Those guys were so funny! Then I lit another bowl and inhaled deeply the harsh smoke that coated my lungs...coughing as I exhaled, I looked down at the bowl and realized it was on fire! I blew it out like a candle, but as the smoke cleared I took a look at the side of the bowl: there was a huge missing piece, half a centimeter wide and a half-inch long. I had just taken a big-ass hit of wood!

    When the show was over I would put some music on as I set the filthy bong aside to roll a joint. I would pop in my Hell Awaits cassette by Slayer, one of the most atmospheric thrash metal albums ever made, before Rick Rubin turned them into pop stars---followed for contrast by the gentle bossa nova classic Getz/Gilberto, featuring "The Girl From Ipanema" and "Corcovado (Quiet Nights of Quiet Stars)"---Kool Keith's Matthew and Black Elvis/Lost in Space were frequent on the rotation, as were GNR's three classic albums.

    And then, what else was on TV? Judge Judy n' shit like that. Man, if only I could still get so high I could watch Judge Judy or whatever her new show is called. Then I would microwave a packet of popcorn, one of the ones that already has butter, and I would melt an additional stick of butter on the stovetop, which I would pour all over the popcorn in a large bowl. The microwave didn't really do a very good job of popping all the kernels, and there would be many left unpopped at the bottom of the bowl. These I would dip in the layer of butter that had congealed beside them and suck it off.

    Finally, too stoned with couchlock to even stand up, I would make myself go out for a two hour walk.

    If only all days could be so carefree.

    THC you later...