The One and Only Time I Tried a Pot Brownie

Edibles. You know? Confectionaries such as brownies, cupcakes, and other baked goods infused with THC from marijuana. Ever tried one? I have, here's my cautionary tale:

The year was 2013, and my life was at an all-time low. I was living with my parents, working two jobs, no girlfriend, and filling the emptiness in my life with alcohol most nights. I still had a roof over my head, but the last place I wanted to be was 31 years old and living with my parents. That's a phrase that simply does not roll off the tongue without leaving a bitter taste.

During the fall of 2013, my seasonal job at this bar near my parent's house was getting rid of the summer help due to a pending decrease in revenue (the bar was located on a river which attracted a lot of summertime business). Needless to say, I was depressed. I was looking very hard for a job that wasn't a restaurant, but no place would hire me no matter how hard I tried. I aired my frustrations to one of my friends who was a bartender at a different bar I frequented.

"You seem depressed. Have you ever tried a pot brownie before?" She asked as if this was somehow a solution to all of my problems at the time. I told her no, and she asked me if I wanted one at no charge. Intrigued, I acquiesced. She went out to her car and came back in with one wrapped in cellophane.

Her instructions were clear: "Make sure you're not working the day you eat it, and only eat HALF of it." My biggest mistake at this moment (aside from accepting it in the first place) was not questioning "why only half of it?"

A couple of days later, I had a day off so I decided to eat it. After removing the cellophane, the overbearing odor of weed smacked me. Not to be deterred, I quickly consumed it and anticipated getting high.

I began playing Grand Theft Auto V, I was at the point in the game where Trevor finds Michael in San Andreas and moves in with his cousin. I realized 45 minutes had passed and I wasn't feeling a damn thing. So what did I do? Yep, I ate the other half of the brownie. I kept playing the game and I started to feel a little high. "THIS IS AWESOME," I said to myself as my temporary solution to depression kicked in.

As time went on, things took a bit of a scary turn. The euphoria began to get more and more intense to the point where bizarre color schemes began appearing. Almost as if I had Instagram filters over my eyes and they were constantly changing. It was extremely disorienting. After I was done looking at all of the pretty colors, I looked at my TV screen and noticed the GTA V characters Trevor and Floyd looking directly at me as if they were waiting for me to say something. We all locked eyes for a minute and the situation freaked me out so bad I quickly got up, ran to the power strip, and unplugged the whole thing from the wall. Whew! That was a close one.

It was also at this time I realized standing took a herculean effort to maintain so I immediately fell over. The intense high kept getting more and more intense as my heart was beating at the rate of a jackhammer! As I was sprawled out on my bedroom floor, I thought to myself: "You just need to sleep. Sleep this off and you might live to see another day." I began awkwardly crawling to my bed. Keep in mind, my bed was probably less than five feet away, but to me, I felt like I was circumnavigating the Earth to get to it. The whole room was shaking and moving, if I remember correctly I was crying like a little bitch because I thought I was going to be the first person in human history to die of an overconsumption of THC.

After finally making it to my bed, I pulled most of my covers off trying to pull myself upon it. It was so strange, I thought I was traversing a fucking mountain and my legs felt like they weighed 200 pounds a piece. As I starred at the ceiling, the constant movement of the room coupled with the color schemes made feel like I was going to vomit. I reached down, grabbed my red comforter, and pulled it over me. As I did, I traveled to another dimension filled with a red sky, red terrain, and a terrifying red thunderstorm. I threw the covers off, the already super intense euphoria was reaching critical levels, I thought my heart was going to EXPLODE out of my chest.

At this particular moment, I had to keep telling myself "You just need to sleep this off and you'll be fine." The only problem was that it was 4:00pm at the time and my Dad was grilling. I knew in the next hour he would be coming to inform me that dinner was ready. If he knew I was high, he'd pistol whip me as I laid there so I had to begin mentally preparing myself to just pretend I was sick. Eventually, my Mother entered my room. She saw me drenched in sweat, sprawled out on my bed, with a 1000 yard stare. She asked me if I was okay and I responded: "I think I have a fever." She noticed I had an open beer near my TV that I opened before eating the brownie and began yelling at me over why I'd be drinking beer if I had a fever. I didn't respond, she left and grabbed me a bottle of water. After she did, she told me to get some rest and to just yell if I needed anything.

Upon exiting my room, she transformed into a dragon, not like the ones on Game of Thrones, but one of those that the Chinese have floating around during parades, and shut my door. At that point, I gave up, I had to force myself to sleep. I managed to eventually but traveled to the red/storm dimension and shutting my eyes as tight as I could. I awoke at 6:00 am the next morning. I still felt high, but functionally high. I looked at my room in horror as it was completely TRASHED. I had shelves of DVDs, books, and Xbox games completely overturned. The drawers in my dresser were all out and the contents were dumped on the floor. My closet door was open and everything was thrown about.

I quietly exited my room to use the bathroom. As I did, I noticed my Dad was awake, sitting in his recliner, reading a book. I figured he had to have heard noise from me trashing my room the night before. He looked at me and the conversation went something like this:

Dad: "How are you feeling?"

Nick: (nervous) "Better."

Dad: "I heard some strange noise coming from your room last night. I was going to check on you but I figured it was your TV."

Nick: (relieved) "Yeah, I was watching a movie."

He shot me a look as if he knew. Maybe he did. But for whatever reason, he chose to just let it go.

And that was the first and only time I ate a pot brownie.