Monday, April 25, 2011

Smart Ass Cripple’s Advice to Youth

If anybody out there is looking for a commencement speaker, it’s not too late to hire Smart Ass Cripple. Perhaps you got stiffed at the last minute by Condoleezza Rice. Don’t worry! Smart ass Cripple is ready, willing and able to step right in!

Smart Ass Cripple delivers an inspirational message that resonates especially well with young adolescents, those who are at the age where they might be considering smoking marijuana for the very first time. Smart Ass Cripple has been there and can speak to them with sobering frankness about the pitfalls of the cavalier use of marijuana. Before they decide to take their first hit, I would implore them not to do something they’ll live to regret. Don’t make the same mistake that I did. DO NOT get stoned for the first time at Jerry Lewis summer camp.

I was 14 years old. I was a camper at Jerry Lewis summer camp. My 24/7 attendant assigned to me for my week at camp was a hitchhiking hippie. He offered me my first joint. So we slipped away in the dark of evening down to the secluded camp parking lot. And there we got stoned. And oh sweet Jesus, that pot was some wicked psychotic shit, or so it seemed to a 14 year old.

I was instantly paranoid. I imagined I saw men wearing bright orange vests, like highway construction workers, up in the trees and they were coming down to arrest me. I should’ve known that being at Jerry Lewis summer camp would be a big time buzzkill. It was way too uptight of an environment to be an appropriate setting for anyone’s first hit. We were a bunch of frail cripples out in the woods and the Muscular Dystrophy Association people who ran the camp were always terrified we might die if a butterfly landed on our noses or something. So to ensure our safety, they practically wrapped us in bubble wrap and followed us around with defibrillators. Curfews we strict.

I told my attendant I wanted to flee the parking lot and head for the Fun Lodge. The Fun Lodge was the lodge where we were sent when it was time to have fun, according to the schedule. There were board games in the Fun Lodge, art supplies like Elmer’s glue and glitter. But the lights inside the Fun Lodge were blindingly bright when I was stoned. They never seemed that bright to me before. And everybody in the Fun Lodge was looking at me! I just knew they were! They all could tell I was stoned!

I told my attendant I wanted to flee back to the cabin. Then I told him to put me in bed and I laid there hiding with the covers over my head until morning.

As you can see, my first time was a huge downer. It’s a miracle that I ever smoked pot again.

And so I offer myself as a living example of the sad consequences of willy nilly pot smoking. Before you get stoned, especially for the first time, you should take a much more deliberate approach than I did and consider the finer details, such as where you are and whom you’re with. Place yourself in a situation that minimizes your potential for feeling paranoid and guilty. This is especially important to do if you, like me, were raised a Catholic.

Because if you’re not going to enjoy getting stoned, then what’s the point?

7 comments:

  1. For this advice to be useful, you'd have to give the Kindergarten commencement address, otherwise it would be too late.

    And don't forget, it's pronounced "yoots."

    -AH

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  2. Got the munchies the first time. Mom came home and saw me crashed out on the couch. Told her I was feeling I'll ( true ). Because I had eaten everything in the refrigerator.

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  3. ...that was "Ill". I was feeling sick. Damn auto-correct !

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  4. I remember the bright lights to that fun lodge. Amazing that it was called the same thing 20 years later.

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  5. The first time I smoked pot, I was about 12-13 years old, living in a rehab hospital for kids in Westchester, NY. One of the older kids had smuggled in a joint and I had a few hits. We snuck outside and took care of business at about 4:45 p.m., which is an important detail in the story. My initial response was that getting high wasn't all that mockable. This response lasted about 5 min..

    As we returned to our rooms, the omnipresent television was playing the opening theme to the popular "Good Times" sitcom. Immediately I began to get concerned. When I went outside, it was definitely Wednesday, but now, the Good Times music was playing, which shouldn't be happening until Tuesday night at 8 PM. Was it possible that I lost nearly 6 1/2 days just like smoking a little pot? It was not until a few days later that I learned that Good Times was now in syndication and running as reruns that my concern abated.

    The next thing that happened is a bit cliché, but funny nonetheless. That evening, the hospital was serving Monte Christo sandwiches for dinner, which they never had done before, and never did again. A traditional Monte Christo is sliced turkey, Swiss cheese on rye bread which is grilled. Basically, it is a overloaded grilled cheese sandwich. Despite being a little kid with SMA with not that great of a caloric need, I ate 2 1/2 sandwiches, not to mention the three small containers of chocolate milk. Okay, so now I have the experience of thinking that I lost nearly a whole week and will be getting fat as a result of perpetual munchies.

    My first experience with hot ended with playing pinball in the recreation room and all of a sudden getting sleepy. Thankfully, no one figured out what was going on and this is the first time it has been revealed publicly. Indeed, it was a Good Time!

    Metro Gimp

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  6. Hehe Just so happens I am high like a kite right now. Thank you for the story. d--^_^--b

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