Today, I fucked up by stuffing my face with edibles before dinner with my wife's parents.
Recently, I traveled to Denver, Colorado with my wife and my wife’s parents. As a resident of a non-legalized state – and as someone who is too much of a pussy to regularly buy illegal drugs – the thing I was looking forward to most was the chance to buy fancy legal weed. What could possibly go wrong?
So the first thing I do upon arriving (and after successfully ditching the in-laws) is drag my wife to a nearby dispensary for a shopping spree. And oh my god, it was just like in my dreams. Tons of different options in neat little sample jars and a team of helpful stoners walking me through the various strains:
“Are you looking for a mellow body high? Or do you want something that gives you a bit more pep and energy? Or are you just hoping for something light to take the stress off?”
“Yes, yes and yes!” I reply eagerly, like a fat kid in a candy store, and request an eighth-ounce of about 7 different options. In hindsight, if I learned anything from this experience, it is that my math and science teachers never taught me basic information, like “what is an ounce?” or “how much weed can a person consume in a single weekend?” Sure, I can tell you when two speeding trains leaving separate stations will collide or recite Avogadro’s Number, but it turns out that none of that information is particularly relevant to getting high in a responsible and efficient manner.
And it was at this dispensary that I also learned that you can’t actually smoke in public places (including the hotel that my wife and I were staying at). As a result, before leaving, I begged my wife to buy some edibles that I could munch on until we found a place to properly get lit. After expressing shock as to the absurd volume of drugs that we were buying (unlike me, she is the product of private school and understands the Imperial measurement system) she relents, and we walk out of the store with what felt like a dump truck of weed plus a small package of seemingly-innocuous gingersnap cookies.
When we finally get back to the hotel room, I tear those bad boys open… only to find about a dozen tiny cookies roughly the size of a quarter. What the fuck, Denver? Seeing the skepticism (and hunger) in my eyes, my wife warns me that I should go easy and look at the back of the package first before trying one.
“Dose size: ½ cookie,” I read silently as I start taking micro-bites from the edges, like a giant chinchilla gnawing on a sunflower seed. But what kind of a savage only eats half a cookie? So a second later, I covertly pop the remainder into my mouth.
And then I quickly stuff another two cookies in my mouth for good measure the moment my wife turns her back. We may not have legal weed back home, but I routinely devour an entire package of Milanos in one sitting without breaking a sweat. Your move, tiny gingersnaps.
About 30 minutes later we are in the backseat of her parents’ rental car on the way to dinner. And that’s when things start to go tits-up. My stomach growls. Loudly and angrily. My wife looks at me with inquisitive eyes that seem to say “Diarrhea?” But I merely clutch my tummy and mumble something about altitude sickness.
“You didn’t eat a whole cookie, did you?” she asks, 10% in genuine concern and 90% in seething irritation.
“Of course not.” I respond, avoiding eye contact for the remainder of the car ride.
A few minutes later we are climbing out of her parents’ rental car and heading into some trendy farm-to-table restaurant. I don’t remember how I made it to my seat, and I don’t remember even looking at the menu, but I do remember the concerned look on the waiter’s face as he asked me if I was doing alright.
“Keep it together, man,” I say to myself. But my wife’s sudden groan suggests that I may have also said that to the waiter. Things are going downhill fast.
The waiter nods sympathetically, takes our orders, and then heads to the next table.
The moment he walks away, my wife is staring daggers at me. I start to worry that the jig is up.
“You are sweating… from your entire face,” she says with both pity and disgust. Not quite knowing what to do, I reach for my napkin and proceed to blot my cheeks, nose, neck, chin and forehead.
At this point, my wife’s mom looks over at me with some concern. “Are you alright?” she asks kindly.
“Yeah, the food’s just a bit spicy,” I reply, far too quick to realize that we had literally just ordered and that there is nothing on the table except for a basket of dinner rolls.
My wife kicks me under the table to grab my attention. “Bathroom. Now.” she hisses. “Get it together.” I reluctantly get up from the table and head for the toilet. After splashing several handfuls of water on my face, I approach a urinal and start to pee.
Now, one of the more disconcerting effects of those tiny gingersnap monsters is the feeling that time has become untethered from reality. As I am peeing, I start to get the very unsettling feeling that I have been taking a piss for the better part of an hour and that my wife must be pacing around the restaurant worried about me.
But deep down I know that is absurd: I’ve been peeing all my life, sometimes multiple times a day. I’ve probably taken more than 50,000 leaks, and it usually only takes about a minute at most. So given that my typical pee is no more than 60 seconds – and given that it feels like I am about half way done – that means that I’ve probably only been standing here about 30 seconds, right?
But the guy at the urinal next to me doesn’t respond, and instead starts shuffling away from me mid-stream, like a startled penguin. I try, albeit unsuccessfully, to break eye-contact.
After finally finishing, I again splash some water on my face and return to my seat, making sure to apologize to the table “for being gone such a long time” just in case my math was off.
Next, I try briefly to engage in small talk with my wife’s father, but I am far too high to understand what either of us are saying. Not wanting to start laughing uncontrollably at the wrong moment – or, really, at any moment – I figure the safest idea is to nod my head periodically and drink a ton of water. Nothing cures mental fatigue like water, right? To my wife’s horror, I stand up, grab my water glass and thrust it out to the waiter, who unfortunately is on the opposite side of the restaurant. But he turns out to be really cool and, after making his way over to our table, tells me that he’ll do his best to keep me stocked with ice water for the rest of the meal. He also helpfully suggests that if the dinner rolls aren’t too spicy for me, I should probably eat one or two so that I’m not sitting there on an empty stomach.
However, after going through all of the bread on the table and three glasses of water, I start to get worried that I need actual food to offset the growing paranoia from those tiny gingersnap devils. “Do you think I should flag down the waiter again and ask what’s taking so long?” I suggest helpfully to my wife.
“What?! We literally just ordered three fucking minutes ago.”
And at that exchange, my wife loses her cool. “HOW MANY COOKIES DID YOU EAT?!” she demands.
“Whoa, easy there, Torquemada,” I respond, somewhat horrified at her outburst. “I had a few cookies, but keep it down. I don’t want your parents to know how fucked up I am right now.”
“REALLY?! THEY ARE SITTING TWO FEET AWAY FROM YOU. THEY KNOW.”
I look up and for the first time notice both of my in-laws just staring at me… for what literally felt like an eternity.
TL;DR: ate way too many edibles on a trip and wigged out during a dinner with my wife and her parents.
