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The national High Holiday for pot smokers, “420,” is right around the corner, and for one day your opinion on whether marijuana should be legalized is irrelevant. #sorrynotsorry
Like it or not, it’s a day for the stoners, the pot heads, the burnouts, the non-conformists, the ones who sat in the back of the class in high school. They’re not fond of rules. You can point at them, judge them, agree or disagree with them, but the only thing you can’t do is ignore them because they usually smell like weed.
Some may see them as the crazy ones, we see a good story. While we can’t — and most certainly don’t — promote the use of illegal substances or events that promote their consumption, we’re always a sucker for a great story.
From coast to coast, the countdown to “Marijuana Appreciation Day,” has turned into an unofficial time for reflection among pot enthusiasts; with the best of the best stories getting passed around like a joint on a high ride to Suscon Road. We may not be able to pass a joint in honor of 4/20, but we sure as hell can pass along these stories of local stoners confessing their experiences when getting high.
‘POT IS ONLY A GATEWAY TO THE FRIDGE’
Confessor No. 1
“I started smoking pot when I turned 16. Everybody that was in my circle of friends in high school was telling me that I had to try it. Eventually I was like, ‘You know what? Let’s have some fun. Why not?’
“I laughed for about two and a half hours after the first time I smoked pot. My first impression was, ‘I hope it stays like this.’ I just wanted to have that overwhelming feeling of non-stop laughter. It made me realize that all the little things in life didn’t matter.
“It actually helped me through a really rough time. I was fighting with my parents a lot. They were constantly on my case about my grades. They wanted me to get back into sports. They wanted me to do everything their way. They wanted me to dress a certain way. It didn’t matter what my grades were or what I was wearing, I could escape when I smoked. I felt the stress go away. I felt free.
“I worked as a busboy at TGI Friday’s to afford to smoke, and bought it from a server I worked with who sold weed. I spent quite a bit of money a week on marijuana; about $120 every week. I spent almost as much as I made at the time on weed. At 16, I smoked three times a day.
“I was caught once by my dad shortly after I started. He said if he caught me again, he’d send me to live with my grandparents. I learned real quick how to hide the smell of weed from your parents. I would literally just take the bag of weed I had and put it in a used Gatorade bottle and my room wouldn’t smell.
“After I graduated high school, I started smoking five or six times a day. I picked up a second job at Target so I could buy more weed. Smoking never really affected my work performance, either. Target had me working mornings pushing carts. They loved me. They’d give me shifts on the busiest days because they knew I’d be there. They knew my eyes would be a little glazed over, but they knew they could count on me.
“I knew it was illegal, but that was the thrill. I actually wanted marijuana to stay illegal. It was a thrill to get high because it was something I wasn’t supposed to be doing. It was something bad.
“My favorite story about a time I smoked pot happened almost two years ago. I just got out of work. It was about midnight. I met up with a few friends and we smoked. Then I got this bright idea that we should drive up to a local gas station. My friends kept asking me why, but I wouldn’t tell them. I just told them to stop at the gas station and have their phone ready to record me.
“We get to the gas station, I get out of the car and open the door to the gas station. I leave the door wide open, and while I’m standing in the door I ask for directions very loudly. Then I say, ‘Excuse me. I’m lost. Could you help me with directions to…’
“I paused.
“‘Could you help me with directions to go — yourself?’ I screamed it so loud. I ran back to the car so fast and just laughed and laughed. Both of my friends were dying laughing.
“I recently turned 21 and I quit smoking about six months ago. I quit because I wasn’t advancing in my life, and I realized to get a decent job, you need to be able to pass a piss test. I got tired of working minimum wage jobs. To get a decent paying job, you usually have to take a piss test. Now I’m a forklift operator and I have an apprenticeship to become a tattoo artist. Life is all about learning and I’ve learned that I needed to quit smoking to get ahead in life. I have also learned a lot from when I did smoke. I’ve learned a lot of good music and I have explored so many different types of food it’s insane. I learned that pot is only a gateway to the fridge, it’s not a gateway to other drugs.”
‘THE 911 CALL I MADE… BECAUSE I GOT HIGH’
Confessor No. 2
“So me and my two friends were at this kid’s house last summer and we were smoking a blunt. This random kid came walking in and was like, “Dude the whole sky is on fire.” So I jumped up, freaking out and was like, ‘Holy shit, we gotta go guys.’
“So we got in our friend’s mini-van, started driving down the highway and we saw the sky flickering. I started geekin’ out and they convinced me to call 911. So I call and I’m like, ‘Hey, I’m driving down 81 and I think an entire town is on fire. The whole sky is glowing and I’m freaking out.’
“Meanwhile my friends are both crying. We thought it was the apocalypse.
“The dispatcher started laughing and told me that I was like the 40th call she’d gotten. She explained to me that it was natural gas burning and told me to have a good night. If I wasn’t stoned, I would have thought through the situation and never called an emergency number like that.
“Things didn’t stop there, though.
“So we’re driving, relieved that it’s not the end of the world and everything, and I noticed that I’m like two miles away from having an empty tank. Luckily, I managed to find a gas station in time. One of my friends goes in to get us some food, because we had the munchies, and I start pumping the gas, well, try to. The nozzle wouldn’t fit because it was too big.
“So I literally squeezed the lever and squirted it and watched it going into the tank. My friend then comes out and I start the car and I’m like, ‘So, I put $55 of gas in and only got three-quarters of a tank,’ I said the nozzle wouldn’t fit in my gas tank and she was like, ‘I don’t think you should come to this gas station again.’ Neither did I.
“We get back on the highway, and my car starts sputtering real bad. We keep going for like a mile and I’m realizing something isn’t right. My friends tell me they think it’s just the road and that I’m high. Then we pulled over and called my dad, and (my friend) got out the words, ‘Dad, we got gas and Kiki couldn’t fit the nozzle into the gas tank…’ Then I heard him scream from the other end, ‘You — retards. She put Diesel in her tank. Turn off the car now.’ All this because I got high.”
MONICA LEWINSKY WASN’T THE ONLY NAUGHTY WASHINGTON INTERN
Confessor No. 3
“It was 2012, and it was the day the Supreme Court upheld Obamacare. The U.S. House office I was interning for allowed the interns to go watch the historic day at the court. We took this to mean to go to my place, turn on ‘The Wire,’ watch while escaping the 105 degree heat (if they thought we were going to hang in that weather in suits, they were the drunk ones), all the while playing four hours of beer pong and smoking about a half ounce of weed between the five of us.
“Then we get a phone call. It is our boss. Our congressman needs us to come in to talk to us. Like, we looked ratchet. We go in and a member of congress begins to tell us that we have to talk to pissed off GOP voters who hate Obamacare. He says it is vital to his image amid re-election. He tells us exactly what words to say.
“Of course, we are blazed, however, and thus are not listening to a word he says. We probably should have because we got 600 phone calls in the next 45 minutes alone. What began as a standard exercise in a professional internship quickly turned into something that more resembled a special ed teacher’s attempt to teach customer service.”