Comedy Corner Underground

As the saying goes, “you know you’re a pothead if your bong is taller than your dog.” I feel that statement is somewhat misleading. It should be, “you know you’re a pothead if your bongs are taller than your dog.”



My mom figured out I smoked weed when I was a senior in high school. She walked in on me while I was wearing old sweatpants and a t-shirt with a camel on it that reads, “Someone in Kuwait loves me!” I was elbow deep in a carton of Moose Tracks and watching Angels in the Outfield at an extremely unreasonable volume. She went to bed, and I a bit later. When leaving for work the next morning, my mom rubbed my shoulder while I was still asleep and whispered to me, “We need to have a talk when I get home.” I didn’t make anything of this until I woke up at 3pm for a breakfast that consisted of a cherry Poptart between two Eggo Waffles with syrup that I saw what she was talking about. Instead of placing the ice cream receptacle back in its proper place, I had placed the carton of Moose Tracks in the kitchen cabinet and overnight, the ice cream had melted out of its container and was seeping out of the cabinet all over the kitchen counter. She had purposefully left it out so that I could discover my mistake and her knowledge of my affection for marijuana. Fuck. She caught me, and because she caught me, I decided to attend a college that was more than acceptable of all things alternative.

At this college, just uttering the word “marijuana” would produce a guy named Fern with dreadlocks and a didgeridoo knocking at your door with sandwich baggies full of Alaskan Thunder Fuck, Afghani kush hybrids, and White Widow (if you’re a pussy).

420 wasn’t just a holiday at my college. It was a week/yearlong celebration similar to Hanukkah or Diwali or any summer music festival located one week from everywhere.

But I’m not uptight about being a retired stoner. You can grow, buy, sell, light, eat, burn, nurse, spray, bake, or do whatever you do with tasty nugs and it doesn’t bother me. I know a few ex-stoners who look back at the drug and condemn it with all of their newfound Christianity. But today, I see marijuana in the same light that I see gay marriage – if you don’t want gay marriage, shut the fuck up and don’t get one.

I suppose I can understand why some oppose the legalization of the drug. It could corrupt the youth! It could exacerbate the “war” on drugs! It’s against God’s law! Good. Overall, I don’t smoke marijuana, but I don’t care if you do. 
But I think that the ritual of smoking marijuana has not only been lost, but ultimately sensationalized by oversized Bob Marley tapestries and Phish concerts. I think that our rituals of smoking marijuana has adapted with the times since the natives smoked for shamanistic, spiritual purposes. Don’t get me wrong – I think that smoking marijuana can be ritualistic and in some cases spiritual, existential, and other big buzz adjectives used often (if not too much) at small alternative colleges across the nation. 

But now, 420 seems to be this highly celebrated holiday, which I’ll admit, I don’t fully understand. It may not be as fully commodified as Valentine’s Day or Christmas or The Reapies. I’ve never been to Target and seen overhead signage that read “Cure Your Blues with Strawberry Cough!” I’m sure that if marijuana is eventually legalized, some states will take this idea and really run with it. 

I knew people in high school that would smoke on 420, just like every other day, but they would all set alarms for 4:20pm on their cell phones and place them in the middle of their small hippie circle and just look dazed and confused with anticipation, not to mention that they had already been smoking all day. Yep, I smoked on 420, too, if you were wondering. But that’s because I smoked every single day. 420 was always no different than any other holiday for me. My 4/19, my 4/21, and even 11/13 was no different than my 420s. I see Valentine’s Day in a similar way; I don’t need one special day to celebrate how much I love my boyfriend, or my friends with benefits, or that guy I text at 2am in the morning to come fuck me when he’s done fucking the girl who texted him at 1am. But I digress…

I suppose 420 celebrates a holiday that isn’t the status quo marked off on certain days of the calendar that as a nation, we’re supposed to embrace and observe, like Christmas and Flag Day and any other holiday that was popularized by that Jesus character (I refer to him as a character because that’s exactly what he is – a character in a goddamn book). I know that was a long sentence, but like I said earlier, you can celebrate 420 if it means something to you. It doesn’t bother me, and these are just my honest reflections about marijuana and its off-kilter “holiday.” So smoke up, or don’t. I don’t really care either way. And for the record, his name really was Fern.

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Thought I’d see if I’d end up in the trunk of somebody’s car

And no ma’am, no sir, I didn’t. I survived it. But boy, was it uncomfortable. Everything started off without a hitch. He walked me along the Mississippi and talked about well, water, I guess. I stopped paying attention for a moment to read a poem that was hanging from a tree that was about well, water, I guess. And he stopped too, peering innocently over my shoulder. The two of us really dug this poem about water. I thought “What a guy,” and we went inside a quaint bar for some intoxicants.

Now this is when I notice he pulls out a tube of chapstick and applies it to his lips. I think “The man’s got some chapped lips.” The beers come. And just before he takes a sip, he does it again. He reapplies the chapstick to his lips. A quarter of the way through his beer, he does it again. Then he stops. He stops until we order our second drink. “Why not!” I say, thinking the chapstick can’t possibly rear its ugly head again. But then sure enough, the chapstick. the stick of chap, the chap of sticks, continues to grace his lips again. And again. And again. Ever more passionately until I have to excuse myself to the bathroom.

There, I look in the bathroom mirror. “Is he quietly trying to tell me that my lips are chapped? Because he’s doing it pretty aggressively. Is he going to plant the biggest kiss on me since the soldiers came back from World War II? Because dear lord, I will vomit. Is there any way that I can throw that tube of chapstick into the Mississippi? Surely it will float because its contents will be empty.” I don’t know what exactly to do, but I head back out, and I thank him for his time and I hug him goodbye verrrrry carefully. And I get to my car, put a cigarette to my lips and think “Good god, this has got to be more healthy.”

When Bob asked me to write something for the blog, I thought it was the perfect way to share my observation that home ownership is like a dog puking up squirrel parts in your living room. But that’s not relatable, and all successful blog posts come in list form. So, welcome to the top one reason I always travel with a bedpan.

1. Barb and I are driving westbound on Ohio Interstate 90, well, we’re stopped dead. I have to pee, badly. About 10 minutes ago, cars quit pulling up behind us, and we haven’t moved forward. It’s safe to say the highway is closed and we’re here for the foreseeable future. I think about heading for the tree line and old school peeing in the woods. But, there’s a creek and I’m not making it over. How about opening both passenger doors and squatting between them? Brilliant idea, except there are two young men in a truck next to us. You know the kind, they’re just dying to take video of an old lady peeing on a highway. Not today, whippersnappers. So back to the car. For another hour.

I think one of my kidneys is trying to punch it’s way out. I’m sweating. But the Kegels paid off and I am not wetting myself.
Two hours. We start to move! I almost pee in celebration. Exit ahead!

It looks abandoned, but we go for it. There is one gas station. I head in, but “Restrooms Closed” says the sign. Standing in the middle of the gas station with my legs crossed, I’m in full on pee-paralysis. Oh good, here comes a State Trooper, this won’t go horribly wrong. He asks how I’m doing. I point to the sign and say I have to pee. We stare at each other for a bit, then I say, “the woods!” He nods approvingly. We’ve got law enforcement buy in. I didn’t make it to the woods.

TL;DR: I travel with a bedpan, its only use is as an amulet with +10 protection against peeing all over your shoes behind a gas station dumpster in Ohio.