Remember 4/20? If you say you do, you weren't really there, man—heh, heh, heh.
But seriously, exactly four days ago Racket launched its first-ever short story contest. The then-topical prompt: Recalling memorable times you got zooted on marijuana. We called for funny weed stories, wacky weed stories, dramatic weed stories, trippy weed stories—you get the idea. Creative nonfiction flair was encouraged; the word count was capped at, you guessed it, 420. (Click here to read this author's harrowing account of being a total lightweight.)
As a proverbial THC-laced carrot, we announced that five grand-prize winners will not only be published in the wavy/gravy pages of Racket, but also each receive a Baja Ontario 5-Hitter Box of edibles valued at $109.
Weedy literary interest is sufficiently sparked? Dig into the winning stories below. (Pen names were encouraged, since area bosses don't need to be alerted to our silly little contest.)
Enjoy!
Just Plain Pissin' Myself by Marianne Janus
This is how my story starts:
I’ve had an edible, I’ve smoked a bowl, I’ve done one of those vape pen things, I ate a Rice Krispies Treat that tasted like dirt, I smoked a joint.
But maybe I miscalculated just slightly, one of those funny little guesses you make when you consume THC. You can’t know, no one knows. It’s Weed Math. X = the factor of the food in my tummy and how tall I am and how much fat I currently have in my thighs. Y = the density of THC in the little brownie that someone didn’t fully bake and is sort of gooey inside.
And then it happens, a phenomenon I can only describe as Ghost Pissing. Somewhere in my stupor, it feels exactly like I’m peeing myself. The warm sensation of peeing my normal, regular outfit like a baby.
But there is no pee.
I feel and I look and I’m searching the room to see if everyone else is peeing themselves, like we’re all in one of those Roman (Greek?) open toilet rooms together. We’re united by Ghost Pissing, proud and unashamed of our ghostly functions.
There must be a medical reason for this: The butt warms up .5 degrees whenever THC is introduced into the body. Or perhaps a psychological reason: I feel so ashamed of simple bodily functions that my brain is trying to rewire the sentiment. Or a spiritual reason: A ghost is inhabiting my body, a ghost that died peeing and never quite got to empty.
And now it’s a thing to consider each time, have I done enough for a Ghost Piss? Will I have a Ghost Piss or just a regular good time? Will the Ghost be Pissing?
It would be excellent if someone out there, a scientist with a great jawline and a tight, high-seated butt, would invent a kind of THC experience that was a no-piss good time. Dr. Hunko’s No Piss Gummies. Just think about the kind of world we would be living in without all that Ghost Piss.
We’re all just Little Pee People, right? This happens to everyone, right?
Untitled by Anonymous
What story could I say that won’t be told a hundred times?
My first experience was with legal weed and was strange. One time I ate too much sushi, <insert art piece here> is perfect only when stoned. The stories aren’t that funny or interesting. They don’t inspire feelings. But I do have someone else’s story that I was fortunate enough to be part of.
Twenty-some years ago legal weed was a pipedream, and while I never smoked, I had friends who did. My college work/study was in one of the many offices on campus and in my junior year, one of the secretaries named Connie started to get sick often. A few months later, it was confirmed as cancer.
Connie was a fighter in all the ways, but cancer doesn’t fight fair. Two kids in the college she was working at, and barely keeping the mortgage up meant she was at her desk much more than she should have been. When the treatment started, she suffered. We isolated her and kept her distanced from the public, but she still came to work.
One fateful day Connie pulled me aside and complained that she was weak and so tired. She was losing her hair, too much weight, and her will to keep going. She then lowered her voice and asked could I find her some pot. She had heard that it could help her eat, and she was desperate.
I went right to my stoner friends and asked how I could get some marijuana. I explained Connie’s situation and why it was needed, and after I handed them her $40, they agreed to help.
Boy did they help. That night the news spread of what was happening and a party was arranged. The entry fee? Two joints. The activity? A Roll-A-Thon. By the end of the night over 30 joints, a stick of weed butter, and half a pan of brownies were donated to Connie along with a get-well card with a bunch of first names and her $40.
Needless to say, walking into campus with a bag full of weed was an experience, one that I repeated several times in my student life, all donated. When I graduated another student stepped up to be Connie’s dealer, and that tradition continued until she passed six years later.
I will forever associate cannabis with the love and kindness a bunch of kids showed a terminally sick stranger. I truly hope each one knew the impact they had on Connie’s life.
Hot Topic by Loris Maximo
The biting wind was particularly chompy one Pokemon Go Community Day, so my friend and I planned to meet up at a sheltered mid-way point to do some catching-them-all with a glorious indoor backdrop: the fabled Apache Mall in Rochester, Minnesota. The perfect place for my first foray into the wild world of weed gummies. The chewy square's otherworldly texture and "watermelon" flavor struck me as not-quite food-like, the nature of which I found to be quite appealing due to my general love for unpalatable comestibles like jalapeno flavored beer or elotes-in-a-cup, both of which I would come to imbibe later that day.
Unpracticed at this point with being high in public, I wasn't sure how much difference this dose would make on my day. All I knew was that I needed to catch up to my rival who was ruthlessly crushing me at collecting shiny digital monsters. The level of hyper-focus I had in those moments was unlike anything I had previously experienced; I had become a Pokeball propelling machine, unaware of my surroundings or anything other than the rinse-repeat of my flicking fingers on the screen.
Eventually, we took a break inside the well known cultural mecca, Hot Topic. Torn away from my monster-catching factory work, I had returned to my earthly form, and it was there that I really began to feel… altered. While browsing the absurd assortment of goth(?) charms, I was suddenly submerged in a tidal wave of giddiness. It was as though all the little bits and bobs in the shop were whispering into my ear like the snake from Disney's Robin Hood. The hairs on the back of my neck tingled, singed by electric fire, and I found myself UNABLE to stop laughing. The more I tried, the funnier the situation became, and I felt betrayed by my own brain, the cackling hyena that was tickling me from every angle.
Laughing all the way to our next stop, I vainly attempted to order some ice cream at Cold Stone. Deciding what to get was the most monumental of tasks, and I found myself unable to communicate as a person ought to. There were gaps of what felt like several minutes in between each of the words that came out of my befuddled mouth, and I could feel the eyes of the ice cream salesman boring holes through my skull. Eventually, I was given something. And you know what? It was the best damn thing I ever ate in my life, whatever it was. 10/10.
Entry by Smitty
I was 15. Maybe 14. I'd befriended a fellow outcast that lived a few blocks over. His parents were hippie-cum-yuppie types. Anyway, the fellow outcast discovered a hidden crawlspace in his parents' bedroom. Inside, he found many conscious-altering delights, including a large cookie tin filled with many different varieties of cannabis.
On one of the many nights that his parents were out on a wine-fueled bacchanal, we decided to sample some of the goods. We crept into the crawlspace and surveyed the cache of glorious ganja. Keep in mind that this was the early '90s. It would be several years until we could get our hands on "red hair" or "kind bud." In my small town, most of us were choking down crumbly spliffs composed mostly of stems and shake. I'm convinced, in retrospect, that our highs were the drug equivalent of the placebo effect. So our selection of the evening's smokeables was decided by which baggie seemed the most full, and was the least likely to be scrutinized.
I can't exactly remember how we planned on smoking our plunder. I was an aspiring stoner that was serious about my craft, so I probably had some kind of secondhand bowl that I counted among my most prized possessions. My buddy's neighborhood abutted a Christmas tree farm that largely went undisturbed outside of the holiday months. We crept across the property lines and found a cozy place in the shadow of a few giant conifers and got to work on our purloined product.
It only took about 20 minutes for the nightmare of the stolen sativa to begin. We decided to take a stroll, as car-less kids were wont to do. It was late fall, and in the dark of night, Halloween decorations appeared to be coming to life. I started to freak out a little bit. I was just lucid enough to realize that my friend wasn't stoned because he hadn't been inhaling the smoke, which made the experience all the more frightening for me. I eventually begged off a late-night jam session and ran home, hoping that the things that I knew to be stationary would stop squirming around like funhouse props. I spent a sweaty, white-knuckled night in bed. I remember my festive trout-shaped lights swimming on the ceiling. But when I closed my eyes, I'd see weird starbursts or have odd visions. I still felt woozy for the entire next day. This, my friends, is why you should always know the provenance of the drugs you take.
The Death Star by Orville Weedensmoker
You never forget your first. I was 13 years old, on a camping trip Up North with my extended family. At night, my cousin invited me to sneak out and hang with some of his friends. Some kids brought their parents’ booze, the coolest brought weed. One of the older kids got us to start playing Truth or Dare, leading two firsts: my first joint, and my first kiss. There would not be a second of either for another five years.
Flash-forward to freshman year. Most of us are living in the dorms, but not Jordan. Jordan has moved into a house with some friends from my cousin’s hometown. To this day, we still refer to this house as “The Death Star,” aka “the house where we would all go to smoke weed.” In the basement of The Death Star, among the pipes, bongs, and scorched knives, is a wall-sized handwritten list of all the flavors available at Wing World with the ultimate goal of ordering all 20 flavors 20 times. We dare to dream. My first “formal” party; my first bong hit; my first Real Crush; my first hit of salvia that we bought at the record store; my first game of Risk where Jordan and I work through the tension developing between us from having the same Real Crush. I have The Death Star to thank for all of this.
Professional obligations and what I call the “lightweightening of age” keep me, and many other Racket readers, from smoking as much as we used to. Despite this, I believe many of us experience the same Proustian effect. There is a moment during every show at First Avenue where the guy next to me lights up, and I am transported. I see Dylan, coughing for two hours after a massive bong rip. I see the holes in the wall from the game of darts with no dartboard. I see the DVD menu of Fellowship of the Ring looping at 3 a.m. I see myself at 18, equally excited and scared about the future.
