2nd Hand Stoner

2nd Hand Stoner 11/11/17 Michael Bonham Larson

Yes, folks I have become a 2nd hand stoner. It all began about 6 months ago when I moved in with my co-worker and friend Mike. He owns a manufactured home in a very small mobile home park here in Scotts Valley. There are about thirty homes that line up right next to each other and the only separation between them is each of their driveways. The only view at times when you open your bedroom window is the neighbor’s car. It is a very nice middle class community filled with humble hardworking people.

My bedroom happens to be located in the front of the house on the corner end and my housemates is located on the back end. That means I can hear everything that goes on from the houses around me. Dogs, kids and domestic issues do not escape my unwanted attention. I also need to sleep next to my open window which has been a habit of mine since childhood. I have chronic asthma and allergies which seem to worsen if it is closed.

About a month ago two things happened, I began to gain all my weight back, the twenty pounds that I had lost over the following few years was beginning to come back. I also got new neighbors who moved in right next door. In the middle of the night I found myself getting up and eating. One night I woke feeling paranoid with a terrible head ach and a roaring hunger. I also got a sick feeling from the smell of skunk that I swear had set up housekeeping outside my window. I got up and slammed down my window and made a baloney sandwich. It was so good!

A few nights later, I woke up the same way but this time, I heard voices coming from the new neighbors SUV outside my window. Allowing my eyes to focus into the night time, I saw my neighbor lite up the biggest doobie I had ever seen. Really folks, I thought it was a cigar. He was sharing it with his girlfriend and she got the giggles, which made me start to laugh at her laughing. I think they heard me for they both looked over toward my window, ducking under my pillows, thank God it was dark anyway. I felt like Gladys Kravits, “Abner it’s a doobie!”

This has been going on now for about two months and I do not know what to do. It’s legal now in Santa Cruz County to smoke “The Weed” on ones’ private property. My assumption on why they smoke it in their SUV is beyond me except to say they do not want their new home to smell like a skunk family has moved in. So I am quietly suffering in my bed at night with my new found weight gain, sneezing, wheezing and feeling too hungry and paranoid to ask them to stop. I also found a new meaning for SUV, “Stoner Utility Vehicle.”

I like to cook and then share my left overs with my workmates. The other night I ran out of dill weed when I was making my chicken pot pie and I thought about going next door to borrow some Herb but was afraid I’d come home with the wrong weed. I can just imagine sharing my chicken pot pie with my co-workers the next day and explaining that, “No, well it could really be Pot Pie.” Egads!