Parental Drug Tales
When I was four or so, my parents had a really nifty telescope. The blue glass tube had a flat bottom on which it stood upright. It always smelled a little funny, and my parents very solemnly told me not to drink the water that was in the telescope. I was a pretty well-behaved kid so I never thought to disobey them on the matter. But one night I wanted to look at the sky, so I picked it up, took it to the back porch of our duplex in rural North Dakota, and held it up to my eye. Stinky brown water spilled out onto my face, and I went inside crying. It wasn't until New Year's Eve 2000-2001, when I lamented my status as the night's driver while looking at the pretty blue bong on some yuppie's coffee table, that I realized that it wasn't a telescope after all. When I asked my mom about it, she said she never told me it was a telescope; I had deduced that and they just kind of went with it.
A year later, they had a total one-with-the-universe moment while watching me roll around on the white shag carpet with their hippie friends. They realized I was a creature of God who should make her own choices in regards to substance use instead of having those choices imposed upon me. So they smoked all their weed in one night ("it was one helluva night") and didn't do it again for years. My mom's plan, according to a conversation circa 1997, was to stay away from it until age 60. "And then," she said, "I'm lighting up and not stopping." This is also her plan for television shows; she and my dad are saving serials for retirement and just watching movies for the time being.
This Christmas, when their other daughter-the one who does not talk much about drug use on the Internet-came into an unusual and unexpected bounty, she decided to make brownies. Said daughter slipped a couple of brownies and an accompanying note into Mom's stocking. A few months later, that daughter got a voice mail that consisted of a middle-aged couple shouting simultaneously into the phone: SEND MORE BROWNIES.
Sixty is still six years away for my mom. I wonder what the family reunions will be like then.
A year later, they had a total one-with-the-universe moment while watching me roll around on the white shag carpet with their hippie friends. They realized I was a creature of God who should make her own choices in regards to substance use instead of having those choices imposed upon me. So they smoked all their weed in one night ("it was one helluva night") and didn't do it again for years. My mom's plan, according to a conversation circa 1997, was to stay away from it until age 60. "And then," she said, "I'm lighting up and not stopping." This is also her plan for television shows; she and my dad are saving serials for retirement and just watching movies for the time being.
This Christmas, when their other daughter-the one who does not talk much about drug use on the Internet-came into an unusual and unexpected bounty, she decided to make brownies. Said daughter slipped a couple of brownies and an accompanying note into Mom's stocking. A few months later, that daughter got a voice mail that consisted of a middle-aged couple shouting simultaneously into the phone: SEND MORE BROWNIES.
Sixty is still six years away for my mom. I wonder what the family reunions will be like then.