The High Cost of Local Weed, part III

Continued from Part II

Ok, where was I... Oh yeah. Well, as many of you already know, I’m not a big man. Its not like I’m short or rail thin, but I’m probably below average in the weight category when it comes to my fellow Americans. This girl was big. Bigger than me. Bigger than most girls. Her face? Not a monument to symmetry. Again, I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just trying to do my best to explain the level of unattractiveness that this girl had about her. So I was leading the way home from the ATM with an uncertain dread in my step while she traipsed behind me like an elephant in ballet slippers. She seemed happy. I was feigning it, though the prospect of herbal promised land was admittedly putting a bit of a hop in my step. The wine might have been helping.

So we get to my hotel room, which, as you should know by now, I’m sharing with my buddy Wyllis. Now he had managed to procure a girl that he actually wanted to try and make out with and had been out with her all night, so I didn’t expect to see him, yet there he was. Lying in bed. Looking miserable. I walked in looking at him with a “What the hell is going on?” glance. He takes one look at my companion and returns the look. Tangential story follows: Apparently Wyllis took his girl out to dinner and afterwards brought her back to our place. Things were looking good for him and as things began to get heavy he remembered that I would eventually be returning. I guess he didn’t feel like having me walk in on the middle of a session, so off he goes to her place. Little does he know that she shares an apartment with some muscle-head that is secretly in love with the girl he is about to violate. Ladies? Really, after we take you out to dinner, even if you aren’t going to give us anything in return, you really must, in all fairness of etiquette, let us know if we are about to get beat up by jealous suitors. We don’t expect you to fight for us. Just warn us. Especially if the guy is huge. So, anyway, by all accounts Wyllis is dripping off this girl when he walks into her place only to look up and see a large, Conan-esque figure clad only in boxers (really living up the barbarian role) who appears about to explode in a rage normally only attributed to Muslim zealots. Now, ladies, if you fail to warn us that we are walking into a war zone, at the very least do not do what this girl does, which is to turn from Wyllis and immediately run into her bedroom and lock the door. So there’s Wyllis, alone, in someone else’s house, facing a half-naked brute with sexual rejection on his mind. As with all those of us who find ourselves in a losing physical battle yet with the ability left to put a hefty intellect to use, Wyllis tried logic. As usual, any sense of explanation or reason falls short with the unreasonably muscle-bound and Wyllis finds himself being pushed down a staircase backwards while listening to the smooth sounds of sonically unadulterated anger. So, as you already know, Wyllis is waiting for me when I get home.

After hearing about Wyllis’ woes, Maine-ite and I take seats on my bed and proceed to feast upon the bounty that is mediocre east coast marijuana. Wyllis’ depression abates a bit with the introduction of THC to his system. I, instead, start to spin a bit and realize that maybe I shouldn’t have had quite so much to drink before leaving the bar. And so the battle begins. My supplier, I assume, takes note of my incapacitation and proceeds to tell me how she actually lives on the far side of the island and has no ride to get home. Ahh, touché, darling. What is one to do? I’m just about sober enough to make it to the car. Almost. But that is about as far as I could go. “Do you mind if I just crash here and you can drive me over there in the morning? I don’t think you should drive right now.” Score: Her – 1. Me – 0. I resignedly give up the battle, preparing for trench warfare.

Shall I cut to the chase? The lights go out. She’s in my bed. As am I. Wyllis in his. Now, I see what is going on here and I go in with, as they say in Trek-land, “shields up.” I slide into bed with my shirt on. AND my jeans. I’m thinking to myself “No way she gets through this barrier.” Oh, ye of little faith. It was the underestimation of the summer. In less than minute she’s kissing me. Fine. I’ll admit it. I kissed back. What the hell! It was dark. I was drunk. And stoned. I couldn’t see anything. I could smell things but, well, let’s not even talk about that. In any case, I’m ok with this. A price I would have to pay, right? Little did I know just how high the cost of local weed would become.

Within minutes she is taking my pants off. Taking my damn pants off. My defenses! I’m kind of trying to stop her, but at the same time I’m lost in male-limbo as I realize that a girl is taking my pants off for me. Girls, you won’t understand this, but such a scenario puts a man’s mind, especially a drunk man’s mind, into a tail spin. Needless to say, she gets them off. And the boxers. I’m suddenly hit with an adrenaline-like burst of sobriety and I turn away from her to avoid the “grab” that I figured was inevitable. She takes the hint and settles down, but not for long. We’re lying there for a bit and I turn over to try and get more comfortable and she grabs my hand. At least it wasn’t the grab I was dreading. Unfortunately, it was almost as bad. She takes my hand and puts it directly on her naked right breast, stating “Just wanted to let you know that was here.” Now I’m confused. Does she think I actually don’t know what I’m doing? Does she think I’m such a massive sexual novice that I’m scared out of my wits right now and want to get down but don’t know how to start? Shall I defend myself with an act of sexual proficiency that will put her in her place? Whoa. Wait a sec. Stoner paranoia. I mustn’t let this tactic confuse me. Now, you know how when you’re high everything moves more slowly? Those last three thoughts probably took about 4 or 5 minutes to work over in my mind. Meaning that for 4 or 5 minutes I’ve been lying there, silently, with my hand dumbly resting, palm down, on her breast. God knows what she is thinking. God knows what Wyllis, who I’m praying is actually asleep by now, is thinking. It takes all of my combined, inebriated wit and will to pull my hand back. But she’s not done. No, how could she be?! She starts to slide over after my hand detraction and makes another move at my face, but I parry. I quietly tell her “You know, I can’t have sex with you tonight.” Now, girls, what would you think if a guy told you this? Would you think he had a girlfriend that he didn’t want to cheat on? Would you think he simply wasn’t into having sex with you (which would have to mean that he really wasn’t attracted to you because, seriously, guys will have sex with a lot of substandard women)? Either way, wouldn’t you be done with him? I was begging God to let her hate me for the comment, but she didn’t. In fact, she didn’t even want to know why. “That’s fine, let’s just make out. Come over here,” she says, I imagine smiling in amorous contentedness all the while. So, yes, to bring the sexual exploits to a grand, if anti-climatic, end, I submitted. It was the only way out. No, I was not forced into any fetishized anal escapades, though thanks for the imaginative commentary, folks. I gave her a ride next morning, blinded by both my hangover and her appearance in actual sunlight. I dropped her off, took a deep breath, clutched my remaining weed, and had I not been in my car would have knelt, NFL style, and thanked the Christian gods for allowing me procure this victory, despite the cost.

On a final note, I had so much weed left over and so little time on the trip that Wyllis and I basically spent the next 72 hours in a haze that rivals my best undergraduate excesses. The final couple grams or so were still in our possession as we returned the rental car at the airport and since we couldn’t smoke it where we were, we ate it. I thought nothing of it until I sat down in the plane and it all hit me for the most entertaining 5 hour flight I’ve ever been on. Though the stewardess kept looking at me funny.

On an even finaler note, contrary to popular belief my life does not revolve around acquiring weed. Weed is much easier to get in San Diego.

The High Cost of Local Weed, part II

Continued from Part I

Ever heard of “PBR”? Its not entirely common out here on the west coast. It stands for “Pabst Blue Ribbon” which, if you don’t know, is one of the worst beers ever brewed in a country that is known for making the shittiest beer on Earth. Now, even here on the hallowed western seaboard, you can find PBR. Usually in cans. Typically in a 30-pack. Some of the low stoop even lower to carry one of these so called “cubes” out to their car, but PBR isn’t well known, for the most part, in this part.

Shift scene. Bar Harbor, Maine. PBR, in all its glory, is being served on tap. A rarity, I surely thought, though I was soon to find out more than I ever wanted to know about this rustic brew. The Maine-ite female, yes, yes. Well, it is perhaps my fourth or fifth night in Bar Harbor. As previously stated, I’ve been cruising the local scene for a shot at bag of weed. I make my way into one of the bars I haven’t yet plied and quickly spot a girl sitting at the bar on her own. Now, I’m not one to flaunt my sexual history. I’ve had some hits, and hell, I’ve had some misses, but when it comes to misses, this one wouldn’t have hit the board. Some people have a defective physical feature or two. This is normal. We’re used to it. Few of us are flawless. This girl, though, was the perfect storm of physical disaster. I mean, God really threw his back into pulling all the disparate parts of unattractive into this one, concise package. In her defense, she was perfectly nice (c’mon, I’m not a complete asshole), though her personality is actually irrelevant to this story.

So there she is, drinking a beer, rolling a cigarette. An American Spirit, no less! I’m mildly buzzed and also thinking about “borrowing” a smoke (who ever returns the butt?), and as I’m moseying over, my eagle eye strikes. You’ve seen a pouch of rolling tobacco, right? A plastic pouch often with a zip-seal of some sort and a large, plastic flap to pull over the reseal-able opening? As she is closing up her pouch of tobacco, I notice a bulge in the flap that is, usually, quite flat. I didn’t have much time to study it, but years of practice have taught me to recognize the shape of a bag of weed when I see it, and I knew it was. I was invigorated. I grabbed an empty bar stool next to her with renewed enthusiasm and immediately struck up conversation. What line did I use? What other could I use?

“So whatcha drinking?”

“Oh,” says she, “PBR.”

“PBR on tap?” I return, gesturing to her pint glass, “I didn’t know anybody cared that much.”

And thus did I willfully submit to 30 agonizing minutes of mindlessly banal conversation regarding her family’s connection, via some obscure and tangential marriage over a hundred years ago, to the brewers of Pabst Blue Ribbon.

They swear by the Ribbon out there.

She, in fact, was certain that her constant intake of Blue Ribbon was helping to support family members that she subsequently was unable to either name or relationally identify.

Luckily, I seem to have found some of her brethren.

 

After ordering a glass of wine in hope of soothing my now frayed nerves, I further pursued my quarry. I asked her if I could have a cigarette, and as she opened the pouch I pulled one of those wow-I’m-surprised-and-No-I-didn’t-peek-at-my-Christmas-presents-in-the-closet-last-week kind of looks as I again ogled the bulging bag of what must be pot in the pouch’s flap.

“Is that…” I offer.

“Probably,” she says, smiling (still I shudder, remembering the first inkling of premonition I had), “what do you think it is?”

Needless to say, I was right. She then went on to inform me of the massive weed drought that had been affecting the east coast, as if to insinuate that I might have to do something extra special to secure my own stash. Luckily, since I was steadily getting drunker, I didn’t get the chance. Though she did promise me weed, she just as quickly disappeared among her local friends and the next thing I knew, she was gone. Stymied!

Now, though, I had a scent, so for the next several nights I repeatedly visited this same bar in hopes of reacquiring the target. No signs. I was severely bummed. Sobriety had taken on religious tones. The trip, however, continued, and it was with some degree of sadness that Wyllis and I left Bar Harbor for a week of adventure out on Penobscot Bay. It wouldn’t be long, though, before we were back.
 
Seven days out and our return path found us again in Bar Harbor for the last three days of our journey. Wyllis quickly set to work on some gal he had met during our former stay and left me to my own designs as far as evening fare was concerned. Is it any surprise that I was back at the same bar? Fate, it would seem, could not be undone. There she was, again, same spot, same drink. I saddled up to the bar again. She gave me one of those sidelong “you again?” looks. There were only three days left on this trip and at this point I was frustrated and honestly pretty indifferent as to the acquisition of weed, so I promptly set to work on a bottle while I let her initiate the conversation. It didn’t take long. It was, perhaps, the second or third thing out of her mouth when she told me that she had scored a bag for me and had been waiting for me to pick it up. I was shocked into action by the turn of events and scrambled for my wallet to see if I was ready on my end. I wasn’t. “No problem!” she says. “I’ll come with you to the ATM and then maybe we can smoke some at your place.” My evening was darkening...

Concluded in Part III