“Sweet Jesus, My Lungs Are Burning!”

• Posted on March 5, 2009 at 1:02 am

There are just some “firsts” in life that you will always remember. Your first kiss, the first time you get drunk, the first time you have sex…this story is about the first time I ever smoked pot. Yes, I just admitted that I have smoked pot and really, is there anyone out there who hasn’t? If there are pot virgins existing in the world today, you are probably not one of my close friends.

The story begins thirteen years ago when I had just graduated from high school. I was seventeen and living in a very small, conservative farm town. My friend, Val [author of the highly contoversial post, "Fuck Cancer"] decided to have a party the week that her parents went away to the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally. She conveniently lived in the middle of nowhere, what us small-town folks called “the country,” and it was intended to be a small get-together with a few friends. Well, we all know how that goes. One person tells another person and pretty soon it had swelled to epic proportions.

Is started off with me, Val, our friend Dane’ and my boyfriend at the time, Chris. The beer was supplied by the quintessential/creepy 30 year old-still-trying-to-hang-with-high schoolers. He was also married, making it all the more pathetic. I’m fairly certain my sister-in-law at the time also bought me beer or I just took it from my parent’s house, one of the two. Because Val lived on a farm, we didn’t have to worry about making too much noise or getting busted by the cops.

Soon enough, cars were lining both sides of her mile-long driveway. A bonfire was blazing outside and a few of the kids were tripping on acid inside. One might think that the reference to her parents going to Sturgis would suggest that her mom and dad were biker freaks who didn’t care about the appearance of their house. Quite the contrary. Val’s mom was our town’s answer to Martha Stewart. Her house was immaculate and very nicely decorated. So it really sucked balls when someone burned a cigarette hole smack dab in the middle of the kitchen floor, which was a pristine white linoleum. Anther kid was using a sculpture that Val had made in art class as an ashtray in the living room. About that same time, too many kids sat on the front porch railing and the entire thing collapsed. Oops!

All of this was a blur, of course, and not discovered until the harsh sobering light of the next day. We were having way too much fun to care! You know you’re at a good party when a kid with cerebral palsy shows up and starts drinking his beer through a straw. Score! At some point, Val ran up to me with a pipe and showed me how to take a hit. I coughed uncontrollably and felt my lungs burning. But I liked it. Well, I was already really drunk so I honestly can’t say I felt all that much from the weed, but there would be plenty of more time to smoke in the future. After all, I was off to college in the fall! And those crazy years are a whole other story.

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