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You Dumb-A**, That's Not How You Smoke It

That One Time I Got High, Sat on the Floor, Sang Songs, and Floated with the Weirdness

By Veronica WilliamsPublished 5 years ago 10 min read
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(I tried really hard to create a pic to relay how I felt. I suck at art.)

I think the most stupid thing I've ever convinced myself of is that I can't get high or "drunk drunk" like other people usually do. It simply takes longer for me to float in the cosmos because I'm fat. I held onto the same invincibility belief when it came to alcohol, until I drank half a bottle of Barefoot Pink Moscato from Walmart, and stumbled into the bedroom yelling idiotic Millennial crap at my Gen X boyfriend. He promptly put my dumb ass to bed, and I discovered that I can definitely get shit-faced. Not easily, not quickly, but definitely with the kind of resistance that makes it a little dangerous to try and test the limits.

I would discover this again after a game of Bob's Burgers shots, pretty much edging myself near death, thanks to the likes of a sheet of impossible to avoid tasks. Several Tequila shots, mentions of burgers, and a fart joke later, I was a handsy mess rolling on the living room floor, laughing at myself. My boyfriend was hardly amused. He was horrified.

Sometime later in the year, I decided to have a chill session with some time to myself. I'm not a newbie in the sense that I've never smoked weed. I've shared, I've rolled some questionable ass joints, but I've never had a full smoke all to myself. What I went through one late summer night went way beyond the time I smoked a lil to ease knee pain. What happened to me was stupid, hilarious, and documented on my iCloud. I deleted a few of the videos, but hold tight to the foolishness of seeing myself on the floor, CNN playing in the background, butchering songs by James Brown and 90's girl group Brownstone. I sounded like a straight up cornball saying "ohhh sssshit, I'm hhhigggh dude! Is my body my body?" with barely red eyes, but feeling like my entire existence was a brown, watery mass of out-of-body craziness.

The only time I've ever floated was when I got on an airplane. Or that time I got on the Giant Drop with my dad and his best friend. "Floating" was reserved for emotions alone, and zero-gravity was a part of my expressive state.

Whatever the fuck I smoked in those three potent-ass joints was an hour of a different me. I floated my fat ass right into near-uncontrollable exploits.

Hand to the sky, I started out sober. I decided to pick up the residue from the rolling box. There's always a little something one can use to make shit happen. Ever the resourceful little beaver, I scraped up enough of the potent sticky-icky-icky to make a pretty decent joint. With the grindings of a small bud, I proceeded to roll and light 'er up. Now, this is the part where the veterans know the deal. You don't smoke that shit like it's a fuckin' Kool Menthol from the corner store. You're supposed to coast and take your time. Well, I didn't coast. I got in the car, put the keys in the ignition, and went speeding down the highway. Big mistake. Stupid mistake.

After the first joint, I'm pressed, because I still feel like me. It about maybe six or seven minutes to light 'n' puff. When nothing happened, I said "okay, let's try that again. Maybe I didn't put enough in the first one." I figured maybe I'd done something wrong, or the stuff was too stale to have any effect. So, on to the next one.

(Yes, really. Facepalm, facepalm, facepalm.)

The second joint was this stupid, flat, haphazardly made piece of crap. My moronic fat fingers fought with the little ZenBox tin because I forgot how to set up the auto-roller. I complicated a foolproof system and cussed at the inanimate object as it mocked my inability to set up the paper, add the stuff, and close the damn box. Twenty frustrated minutes (and a YouTube video full of judgmental fucks harping on the creator about how wrong she is) later, I have a banana pepper lookin' joint that's pathetic as shit, but packed nonetheless. I'm happy with my work and proceeded to scoot to the middle of the bed to hit. CNN's got this decade celebration program on, and I'm in potent flavor town. I smoke like a pro, taking my time.

But I'm not high yet!

This time, I've given myself about forty minutes to see if there's a buzz. I still feel like the nappy-headed yutz from Chicago that I am, with a small apartment bedroom full of very potent dankness in the air. I didn't have the ability to taste purple yet, and I didn't feel like singing California Dreamin'. WAS this shit stale?

SO!

I roll another motherfuckin' joint. Lucky three, three times the charm, three's company tooo. Numero Tres. This one is much better and is packed with roller box residuals and perfectly ground bud. It's a certifiable fatty, and I go into a slooowgrooove. I take my time, making sweet bud love to my creation. I iiiiiiinhale, hold (cough!), and make clouds. I'm on the floor by now, and I'm enjoying the analysis of eighties culture on TV. When nothing transpires twenty minutes later, I decide to call it a night. I accept that maybe I can't get high, just mellow. I spend the next hour watching TV, then....

Booooooooom....

(Think of that generic "falling into deep water" sound you hear in modern day movies. Or the sound of a dinosaur/monster approaching the city. Or that dramatic loud kick-snare sound used in trailers for thriller movies.)

Like a ton of steel bricks, the high hit me. I'm seeing tiny Chevron designs dancing all over my field of vision. They're all moving towards an invisible destination off the cheap white walls of the apartment. I can hear the TV, but I can't feel my own body. I couldn't stop thinking about whether or not I had a body! Everything about me was sloooower, and I was freaking out a little bit. Why was it taking so long for me to move? Why did I feel so good all of a sudden? Was I whispering or yelling? The helplessness was intriguing. The push to return to my regularly scheduled program had been interrupted completely. I could not get my brain to dig the scene. I couldn't remember how to think.

Oh.

Ohhhh shit.

I'm high.

There were no black dogs, strange visions, or any kind of loud behavior. I think the worst thing I did was text nonsense to my boyfriend, telling him whatever he had brought home was "smelly and super potent." I wrote how my mind was relaying, which was pretty much a thousand "Ooooohs" and "Ohhhhh shits." "Do I have to come home?" he asked. I assured him that all was well, the door to the bedroom was locked, and the kid was simply coasting on a new feel. It was the kind of feel that kept me in stereotypical giggles and tons of "duuuuuude" moments. Thank you, 90s childhood.

So I'm on the floor, and I decided to celebrate this moment by singing I Feel Good. Not even the whole song, just the few six lines I know. Just the instrumental break, too, as slowly as possible. When I decided that I sounded GOOD, I had the audacity to get my phone to record myself. I proceeded, stupidly smiling at my floofy afro as I snickered and sang James Brown over and over.

My ears felt like I had a million balls of cotton stuffed inside. The world around me was no longer in her usual stereo, and it felt like somebody had been messing with the sound balance. I was drifting along like a goddamn Jamiroquai song.

I proceeded to reach into my foggy mind to sing songs from high school and junior high, happily butchering Óyenos, Señor and If You Love Me... with the kind of faded conviction that would later have my boyfriend snickering with earbuds stuck to his head. He LOVED seeing my hazy insanity replay on my iPhone screen. I was stuck between embarrassed and amused. Who was this person staring back at the both of us, chattering away like a straight up newbie about highness?

I was a mush-brained mess, but I was so fucking happy. There was nothing to worry about, save for screaming too loud and waking the neighbors. They stomped once. "Control, control. Gotta get control," I kept telling myself. In the back of my head, my natural Virgo self was looking for sense. I knew I was fucked up, but it felt a lot better than worrying about debt, fatness, Blackness, school, and the thousands of other problems that spin around in my head. I felt glued to the floor, unsure if I belonged in my own skin.

The playback was hilarious, because I was way too close to the camera with this shit-eating, curled up Grinch grin full of dimples and my facial hair, just a-cacklin' about reaching my so-called weed nirvana. I remember feeling so weightless, trying to lift myself off the tacky beige carpet. I was aware, but I wasn't "aware." I'd lost control over a very big body, and I was swaying to the breeze of bliss. My skin felt like nothing, the floor felt fluffy, and I couldn't remember how to lift my arms. I kept questioning myself with each second of "immobility," trying to understand the newness of all the tingles and numb sensations in my arms and butt. I felt so soft and light, but goodness knows I was freaking out about being on that damned floor. I couldn't stop trying to press fast-forward to get up.

What amazed me was that in all the slow-mo confusion, I was able to fumble enough knowledge together to record myself. I just had to verify my experience. Once my senses started to return, I decided that the best thing I could do for myself was to get in bed and stay there. So I slid my fat ass right in the middle of the bed, tucked myself in, and watched a marathon of something old school and seventies. (My memory won't allow me to recall what it actually was...)

It was stupid as hell, but my freedom was kind of warm. Aside from the threats of disturbing the peace or getting snitched on by my jerk neighbor, I was just a laid-back chick singing, chuckling, and watching CNN. When I recalled the three-joint-night to my boyfriend the following morning, his eyes widened. He shook his head, gently reprimanding me:

"You're not supposed to do that. You're supposed to at least have a 10-15 minute interval between smokes. It's not like a cigarette..."

Well...I know that now. (Facepalm, facepalm, facepalm!)

I looked like shit in that playback. Messy hair, splotchy eyes, smoooth singing voice.

[About the authoress: Veronica is currently a Senior at UT Martin, but resides in Marietta, GA with her boyfriend and FunkoPop collection. She is a native Chicagoan who despises deep dish pizza. Her body of work spans the genres of anecdotes, poetry, commentary, and the occasional product review. She's allergic to raw almonds, and can't stop watching 24/7 streams of The Simpsons.]

[Photo credits: Edited Kush in a glass jar photo is the original work of Yash Lucid, who can be found on Instagram under the name "thatlucidguy".]

humor
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About the Creator

Veronica Williams

Chicagoan in TN. Currently married to the night and looking for coffee.

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