A Review: Going on a Weed Run

Sometimes it’s a long walk to get ripped.

“It’s colder than a witch’s tit out here,” I say to my building’s maintenance guy who is braving the temperatures to lung a Camel Heavy, which I have previously seen him do at a slightly alarming pace.

“You know that’s for sure, my brother,” he says while he takes a lengthy drag and I wonder how long the ash will get before it falls off the butt of its own accord, and we do our secret handshake, which is where you bump your firsts together.

I feel a bit of pride in his confirmation that my assumption 16 Fahrenheit with a real feel of -3 still qualifies as “colder than a witch’s tit.” When I was bundling up I thought I might be skewing a little melodramatic about the choice I’d made to head out, given that it was much warmer now than it had been earlier in the week. But I trusted his judgment, because the first time I said this phrase to him he’d confirmed and said he knew just how cold that could be, given that he had once been married to a witch.

“But we’re still livin’ the dream, ain’t we?” he says with a level of enthusiasm I constantly attempt but never succeed in matching.

“Someone’s version, yeah.”

I am not meant to be out in this type of weather. Not great with meteorological extremes on either end of the spectrum. I have slightly agoraphobic tendencies, too, am not exactly a man about town. To get me out in this kind of cold, it would generally take running out of food and/or drink, a date that had somehow seemed like a good idea at the time or a hangout with a friend that was still on because even though we’d lightly danced around the topic of canceling we both refused to blink first.

I have plenty of nosh on hand and, as with many afternoons/evenings, neither date nor friend on deck for the evening.

I am out in pursuit of another means to a temporary thrill: Weed.

Being a real martyr about it too, because I have not encountered a single obstacle when it comes to legally securing marijuana for roughly six years. And it wasn’t all that tough in the four or so years before that, when I was still breaking the law. It’s been a pretty easy decade under the influence, all told.

In New York, you could get it delivered, and the services and their messengers were often reliable and pleasant. You got to know some of them if you were a frequent customer, which my roommate and I certainly were. One gave me a French kiss goodbye when I told her I was leaving for DC, where you could get it legally delivered through a “gifting economy” loophole that I don’t really understand: The weed itself was free but you would pay whatever amount it equated to for something random, like a baked good from a local shop or, one time, a Hootie and the Blowfish CD. (They even came through when I was there for the January 6th and lived within pissing distance of the Capitol Building. Honestly, they’d be the only alibi I have for that day.)

When I upped and ran for Chicago (not because I was wanted by the authorities), it was fully legal, with dispensaries everywhere. Delivery is not yet permitted in my area, but until now I had been able to buy as much as I wanted to last me through any cold snaps, and I had to schlep my ass to the office anyway every now and then and could just snag my wares from a close-by establishment on the way home. There had even been a time when my then-girlfriend would pick it up for me, as she had a medical card which means she could get it sans tax. But those days are long gone. (I used to Venmo her for illicit substances. She now Venmo’s her boyfriend for groceries and household items. I am not proud that I know this.)

So to go out in sub-freezing temperatures on a Saturday afternoon for a drug run was out of character, and not at all what I predicted would happen when I tossed the dregs of my dwindling stash on Tuesday. I had decided to take some time away from the weed in an attempt to lose some weight and gain some more clarity about a few things.

Turns out I’d picked the wrong week to go on a sabbatical from rippin’ blinkers, though, so by Saturday afternoon I was ready to solitarily blow off some serious steam — elevate above my pervasive problems for at least a little while. Plus I was burnt out on productivity, boredom was setting in, and I’d almost always prescribe some reefer as a means to a brief reprieve from the low-level doldrums. Especially if you’re drop-kicking any illusion of getting anything meaningful done for the next 12 hours out the goddamn window, unless you consider drinking a half-gallon of Stevia-infused grape Kool-Aid and eating more than a dozen chicken wings as meaningful, which it can be. There are many ways to commune with whatever god you believe in.

So, on with the jeans, a jacket and a shirt, along with some other insulating layers, headphones on and out the door I went — albeit disgruntled that I had to walk a round-trip of two miles and change, over the river (literally), through snow, in frigid temperatures, uphill both ways. (Just kidding. In the midwest there are no such thing as hills for the most part, at least in comparison with western Pennsylvania. Around here they consider molehills to be actual mountains.)

It occurred to me that I have grown soft. (Or softer. I never wasn’t soft.) Had become too comfortable with not being discomforted when it came to my journeys toward the righteous action of getting good and ripped out of my gourd. I was now spoiled and I felt ashamed. This is what happens when things get too easy, when you don’t have to work for them: You don’t appreciate them enough.

Back in the good ole’ days — when that crazy person (or at the very least woefully misinformed) Nancy Regan’s D.A.R.E. shit was still making the last of its rounds amongst the youths and their parents who at least seemed to have honestly bought into the notion that weed is what would lead you on a swift road to one or several circles of hell, quicker still if you dabbled in Dungeons & Dragons — I went through some trying times trying to get my hands on schwag adjacent to oregano. (The de facto drug dealer at my high school would sometimes sell actual oregano as weed to the uninitiated who didn’t know better. Which is saying something, as the two do not even smell vaguely similar. He also had a D.A.R.E. license plate on his Volks Jetta, and while that is pretty on the nose as far as irony goes, I did enjoy the novelty of it.)

A marijuana messenger unexpectedly smooching me doesn’t hold a candle to some of the strange and unexpected shit I’ve seen and experienced, man. Not even in the top five. I’ve never gone so far as to exchange sexual favors for pot, though (didn’t even get a discount after the kiss). But not for lack of trying.

So, this realization snaps me out of my saltiness, gets me reframing how I’m viewing my impeding sojourn. I’m no longer put-off by getting on with my pick-up. I’m privileged in more ways than I can quantify, and being able to just go out and purchase some sativa whenever I damn well please is not even the tip of the iceberg. And what awaits me at the end of my journey is going to be really rewarding. Euphoric, even.

So I may as well enjoy it. I’m still not exactly thrilled with myself that I didn’t stick to my guns and take a longer break, but if you love something set it free and if you pine for it afterward maybe it’s fine to try and get it back. Long as it doesn’t involve writing a long-ass, ill-advised, Hail Mary of an email to an ex. If all you have to do is stroll over to a local shop while merrily listening to Belle & Sebastian, fresh Zyn pouched, with your debit card and government ID in tow, you’re not harming a thing. So this shan’t be a Walk of Shame. It shall be a Stride of Pride.

Kids these days in most states will never know what it was like to go through the Searching-For-Smoke Struggle. Does it pain me to my very core that I’m now of an age where I can say, “Kids these days…” without it seeming like I’m joking? Kind of. But not really. I’ve made my peace with how time works, and I’ve had a good run. I’m not going to be an ornery, crotchety old man about it. I’m happy for Gen Z, Gen Alpha and whatever comes next. Legalize it. Smoke ’em if you got ’em. I mean, I think they’re going to need it. I’d wager they’re going to see some shit and am not too optimistic things will be on the upswing when the first wave of them takes the torch in the midst of a gigantic fucking dumpster fire. Kýrie, eléison on the road those youths are gonna have to travel.

I make it to the dispensary. There is almost no line for pre-order pickups. All the employees are in a great mood. I do not need to wonder why. And soon I will be in a great mood, too. The dude who rings me up asks me what I’m gonna do with my night. I tell him I’m going to re-watch some Yellowjackets even though there are so many films and shows I haven’t seen before and I’m way, way behind on the episodes of Jeopardy and General Hospital burning a hole in my DVR. He says he’s seen it too, and if I need a palate cleanser between episodes I should check out Shrinking and I’m like, “Oh I’ve seen that” and then we debate whether or not that qualifies as an actual palate cleanser given some of its dark themes. Then he’s like, “You ever fuck around and run Hey Arnold back? The Helga/Arnold thing? Compelling.” He hands me my bag and I leave a little tip for him because pop culture critics should be appropriately compensated, then I take the breeze.

I put my earbuds back in to start my journey home. Head east, bank a sharp right south and onward until dusk, baby.

A Belle & Sebastian song, “If She Wants Me,” resumes and I hit pace just as this line hits:

“But life is good, and it’s always worth livin’, at least for a while.”

Going on a weed run: 5 STARS