it's almost 4 20 -- do you know where your parents are?

originally posted April 18, 2007

My parents smoked pot once. As the story goes, this would have happened around the time I was 11 – about 1985 or so. "Freeway of Love" was big on the radio. We, as a nation, were captivated by Star Search. There was still an abundance of those Frankie Goes to Hollywood t-shirts. Really, who wouldn't want to be high? And what was I doing? Hanging the first of many pictures of George Michael (the musician, not the Bluth) on my bedroom wall, starting a collection that would grow to 124 pictures within two years (one of which would feature my face, glued over G.M.'s girlfriend's face). And what were my parents doing? Toking out – but just once.

They scored their weed from a guy named Dale. I knew him as an eleven year old, and he seemed okay, but looking back now with wise, womanly eyes, I see that he was kind of ooky. David-Lee-Roth-Now-Ooky. (Come on – have you seen him lately?) Dale was that guy, and I don't think I ever saw him wearing a shirt. And from this man came the joint my parents would smoke.

The house we lived in had a smiley face toilet seat in the bathroom in my parents' bedroom. It was there when we moved in, and remained while we lived there. It was on this smiley face that each of my parents stood, blowing smoke into the bathroom fan, when they first partook of the ganja. They claimed they didn't like it, and as soon as they tried it they threw it in the toilet and flushed it away. No fun was had. This is the story.

I was first told about The One and Only Time My Parents Smoked Pot when I was nineteen or so, and at the time I believed it. Now I wonder. I present to you some key pieces of information:

Exhibit A: THE COUCH
When I was a very little girl, we had a couch made out of a shipping crate. Yes, I know. You are confused. A shipping crate couch? Isn't that really more of a meth-y thing to do? A shipping crate, if you've never had a huge quantity of something shipped to you, is a huge wooden crate in which things are shipped. It's like what Lurvey built to transport Zuckerman's Famous Pig to the fair, except bigger, like you'd need if you had a bison-sized pig. This was the base, and the rest was made of pillows – groovy, groovy, velvety pillows. Seriously, there were probably 30 pillows – custom-made pillows. And the shipping crate was charred. Charred because my dad stood over it with a blow torch, charring it, and scrubbing it with a wire brush, and charring it some more. Neat, huh? I have to wonder, though: was there really nothing leafy involved in any of this, ever, from conception to completion? Really? Perhaps. Did I mention that we also had an enormous bean bag that matched the pillows? I didn't? Well we did. All this just because it was the seventies? Okay, I guess can accept that.

Exhibit B: THE LIVING ROOM SNACKS
Situated near all the pillow furniture were snacks. We had a big bowl of assorted nuts in the shell, a nutcracker, and a bowl for discarded shells. We also had a cork-topped jar of pretzels, and an accompanying cork-topped jar of yellow mustard. This was mustard that had been taken from its original container, and had been reassigned to another container suitable for accessorizing a living room. The container was clear glass too, so you could see that it was mustard. We also had a machine that dispensed peanuts. Occasionally a cork-topped jar of cheesy corn doodles would appear. All this, all the time. Who needs this kind of stuff at the ready, by the television, next to the Jim Croce records, because the kitchen is too far away? I'll tell you who: stoners.

Exhibit C: THE DINNER CONVERSATIONS
I recall dinner conversations that were dominated by a parent going on and on and ON about all the delicious aspects of a single ingredient. I remember distinctly my mom being just amazed at how sweet that onion was. Amazed. "That onion was just so wonderful…so, so sweet…I just can't get over it…" That's pretty much all I remember from dinner conversations too, so I'm pretty confident it happened all the time. Do you remember the last time you enjoyed an onion that much? You don't? That's because you were high.

Exhibit D: THE CUTTY SARK BOTTLE
When I was four, my parents had an inflatable Cutty Sark bottle that was taller than I was. You know who else has one of those? Your connection.

Exhibit E: THE PARANOIA ABOUT MY EXPOSURE TO POT IN TOTALLY PREPOSTEROUS SITUATIONS
An example: When I was 12, my friend Shelby invited me to go see G.M. in concert (!!!) and my dad wouldn't let me go with her and her mom and her nine year old sister because he thought there would be pot somewhere at the concert. WHAT? (An aside: He almost didn't let me go see Paul McCartney with my friend Kristin when I was 14, but he did, and guess what the people in front of us had?)

*************************************************************

This is a sample. I could go on. It just seems that the only parents like this who I ever encountered – the ones with giant, billowy, pillowy furniture and inflatable liquor bottles – were more experienced than my own.

I should mention that there is also compelling evidence that suggests my parents' claim is actually true: On two separate occasions over the past couple of months my dad has been to my house and has asked, in a tone that is both jovial and accusing, if I have recently been smoking pot. Correction: the first time he asked me if I'd been smoking pot, but it turned out he was sitting next to a scented candle. It wasn't a pot-scented candle, either. The second time he asked me if I'd been smoking "doobie". Seriously, the word doobie fell right out of his mouth like it was the most natural thing in the world – like it was itself a doobie that had just burned his lip. The doobie smell turned out to be my perfume – also not pot-scented. I said to him, "You don't know what doobie smells like, do you?" This he neither denied nor acknowledged to be true. And then he coughed.

See? I'm flummoxed.