New Traditions

It has been a long time since I have been stoned. So long that I can’t even quite remember the last time, but it was before marriage, before kids. So, when one of my children suggested that we all get high as a family over the holidays, it seemed a fitting thing to do at the end of 2020.

First there was the task of actually acquiring the stuff. I gently remind my readers that we are not in a U.S. state where this activity is easy and legal. We live in the equivalent of Cincinnati circa 1963. And there is a pandemic with restrictive movement orders, in case your forgot.

My child, through friends and contacts, located Sketch (his alias has been changed to protect his real alias) and we arranged a bus stop rendezvous a couple of miles from where we live. The offspring and I took off into the dark, with many warnings from my husband about the likelihood of a routine stop by the police to find out why we were on the road during the “orange” zone limitations. (I have somehow acquired a “reckless” label recently from John, which may have something to do with my Chamonix adventure. But who doesn’t occasionally need to be rescued by a helicopter?)

We devised a cover story that we were merely picking up pizza at a restaurant near where our connection would be waiting. I insisted that we actually did order a pizza so that our alibi would be airtight. This was much to the shock of the restaurant which was clearly having a slow night and had probably made one other pizza to go that evening.

We pulled up in the bus zone and there was Sketch, wearing a black hoodie pulled all the way up. To the relief of my progeny, as there was not one other person awake in a 2-mile radius, no secret handshakes were needed. These had been practiced, along with a carefully (and apparently mandatory) averted gaze.

We got the goods, and the pizza, and headed back to the house. On the way we stopped at a large and well-stocked tobacco vending machine to buy rolling papers and filters. We thought we had it all set.

Then came the hard part. I’m so out of touch between being such a mom and living eight years in Italy, which is behind the times in these matters, that I’ve missed out on a few basic life skills. It turns out that rolling a joint is a lot harder than it looks in the movies, or when some unimpressive yahoo hands you one. They have air gaps, come apart, and the filter is always in the way. I worked on doing dishes while one of my descendents turned to YouTube for answers. There is a vast library of information filmed by experienced 14-year olds in their bedrooms, but none seemed to solve our problem. We were over an hour into this and had not yet successfully inhaled anything.

We then went to Plan B. The apple bong. Very popular on YouTube. This involved using advanced tools to tunnel a set of intersecting channels into a regular old apple. This actually got us somewhere although we did end up almost singeing off some facial hair trying to light the tiny bud balanced atop the apple.

After all this a mild effect was felt and it was time to watch Blades of Glory. I remembered that I really hate smoking anything and rarely need to feel more tired, but it was all very pleasant.

We wish you a merry end to 2020 and a much, much better 2021, hopefully filled with some unexpected adventures.

(And thanks to Anna-Sophie for the glorious sunrise photo from her window, which happens to overlook our house.)