It wasn't always like this.
Back when I was a kid, if you wanted information, you became a human search engine. While it was still possible to conduct your search without leaving home, your search was generally limited to antiquated options such as three to five channel television (yes, there really was such a thing), newspapers, magazines and books, usually old-fashioned things once known as encyclopedias. If you needed more than just basic information, you would actually have to leave the house and go to a book store, where you could buy books or you'd have to walk uphill, both ways, barefoot in the snow, to a magical wonderland called the library, where you could find the information that you needed, sometimes involving pre-computer technology such as card catalogs (shudders) and microfilm (pretty cool, actually). Does all of this sound like a giant pain in the ass to you? Let me assure you, it sure as shit was.
In the modern era, having all of this information at your fingertips could enable you to do some great and amazing things.
At the very least, it could keep you from doing some incredibly stupid shit...
It was during the great weed drought of 1983 and it was drier than a ninety year old woman's vagina. No matter how hard you tried, cried, or begged; no matter how much you were willing to spend, there was no pot to be found. It was heartbreaking and cruel; stoners were begging in the streets and selling themselves for seeds and stems. Dealers wouldn't even bother to answer their pagers and you knew, you just fucking knew that those motherfuckers were holding out on you. You could just picture them in your mind's eye, toking away and laughing while their pagers blew up. Everyone was crying the blues, even my first string, all star pot dealer was asking me if I could hook him up. My second string guy was all hustle with no bustle (I'll bet he's still waiting for that fucking phone call) and even my dealer of last resort, the guy who was such an asshole that he was tolerated only in the most desperate of times. You know the guy I'm talking about, the super-sized sleazy dirtball who overcharges, under delivers and always comes up short. The douchebag that leaves you feeling soiled. That motherfucker. The city had become a barren wasteland; it was like pot had completely ceased to exist.
Luckily, my friend Luke and I believed in leaving no stone unturned in our quest for pharmacological relief. I searched hither and yon,while Luke turned the city upside down and inside out in our holy quest for the Lord's herb. I don't recall how or why it came to be, but Luke caught wind of a book titled, "The Anarchist Cookbook," written by a man named William Powell.
"The Anarchist Cookbook," is chock full of fun ideas, directions, instructions and recipes for useful and practical things, such as weapons, booby traps, explosives and homemade drugs, including lsd.
The book actually has an FBI file. Check it out:
Let me state for the record that we never, ever, ever made any of the explosives, or blew up tons of shit in Luke's backyard and we certainly never made napalm, nope, not us, although I'm sure that it would have been a lot of fun. I'd swear my innocence on a stack of fucking Bibles.
However, we did maybe, kind of, sort of, might have tried a few of the drug recipes.
Hell, what we did was pretty tame, compared to some of the lengths that people will go to in order to catch a buzz.
***WARNING - THE FOLLOWING EXPERIMENTS WERE CONDUCTED BY TWO COMPLETELY UNTRAINED MORONS. KIDS, DO NOT TRY THIS AT HOME!!!
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| No, we didn't try to get high from scorpions. Maybe if we had seen this. |
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| Dude, hold my nuts. |
The plan was very simple. Luke's parents were out of town for the weekend and we were going to engineer our own little designer drug factory. The very first thing that we tried to do was to get high from smoking peanut skins (it's a very simple recipe, but very time consuming, cracking and peeling all of the peanuts). I know that sounds stupid and it was. Incredibly stupid. No, that still doesn't do it justice. How about incredibly fucking stupid? Has a nice ring to it, doesn't it? I can't tell you how incredibly fucking stupid we felt while doing this, but we tried it anyway, mostly because we were incredibly fucking stupid. We were desperate and I wasn't about to sell my body for a buzz. I'm not that cheap of a whore. Cheap? Yes. Whore? Yes again, but I usually hold out for at least a fucking Happy Meal.
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| Irrefutable Evidence |
Getting high with the psychedelic peanut:
1. Take 1 pound of raw peanuts (not roasted).
2. Shell them, saving the skins and discarding the shells.
3. Eat the nuts.
4. Grind up the skins and smoke them.
We cracked the nuts, shed the skins, ate a bunch of fucking peanuts and then ground the skins, rolling up about eight joints of peanut skins. I fired up the first joint, inhaled and almost immediately coughed a lung across the fucking room. I can still hear the disgustingly wet sound that it made when it hit the wall, or maybe I just shit my pants. It was a loud "splat," okay? With tears streaming down my face and my lungs on fire, I passed the doobie over to Luke, who immediately hacked up his entire respiratory system. It was pretty fucking gross. I still couldn't even form words, but after catching our collective breath, we both agreed it was a pretty smooth smoke. Please watch the video below for a more accurate description of the experience.
Nothing beats a little lung butter...
Somehow, we managed to smoke all eight joints of peanut skins and lived to tell the tale. It was like an endurance contest to see who was the biggest dipshit, neither one of us willing to give up or give in, in front of the other. We waited to see what the effects would be like. We waited and waited and then we fucking waited some more. We tried to convince ourselves that we were stoned. We tried to talk ourselves into being stoned and at one point, Luke even claimed to see a few happy trails, but all that I could see through my still watering eyes was disappointment and a large fucking pile of raw peanut skins.
Being the intrepid drug pioneers (that sounds much nicer than calling ourselves complete fucking morons, doesn't it?) that we were, we smoked the rest of the skins, too. Still nothing.
You know what they say though, if at first you don't succeed, try something even more incredibly fucking stupid. And so we did. It was almost like we had to. The Lord works in mysterious ways.
The gloves were now off as we moved straight to the hard stuff on our fast and furious road trip to Hell and let me tell you, it wasn't paved with any good fucking intentions, either. Banana peels. No, it wasn't paved with fucking banana peels, you fuckwad, pay attention. In our crazed lust for drugs, we tried the ultimate horror of horrors, one of the most addictive and dangerous substances on Earth. I'm almost ashamed to admit it, but yes, yes, fucking yes, we tried to smoke banana peels. I'm even more ashamed to admit the things I've done for a Klondike bar, in the back of an ice cream truck, but let's not go there, the memories are still too fresh and painful. Oh, and don't approach me with a sugar cone, either, it gets bad, very bad. Don't judge me, I was young and incredibly fucking stupid, but now I'm a lot older. I'm still incredibly fucking stupid, but I have a lot more experience at it. It takes a lot of dedication and hard fucking work to be this incredibly fucking stupid. I almost broke into a sweat once, because I had to concentrate really hard and come up with an answer to a yes or no question. Potato is always a handy word to use in situations like that. People and their fucking questions.
The peanut skins turned out to be just another gateway drug. A gateway to broken promises and a life unfulfilled. A one-way trip to a skid row destination. Living in a van down by the river was just a short hop, skip and a jump away.
The night after the great peanut skin doobie debacle, we decided to try the recipe for Bananadine.
Getting Buzzed with Bananas:
1. Obtain 15 pounds of ripe yellow bananas.
2. Peel all and eat the fruit. Save the peelings.
3. Scrape all the insides of the peels with a sharp knife.
4. Put all the scraped material in a large pot and add water.
5. Boil 3 or 4 hours until it has attained a solid paste consistency.
6. Spread paste onto cookie sheets and dry in oven for about 20 minutes.
This will result in fine black powder.
Usually one will feel the effects
after smoking three to four cigarettes.
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| We should have waited for the Internet. |
Fifteen fucking pounds of bananas. Seriously? Just a normal, everyday purchase that definitely wouldn't raise any eyebrows, right? We were off to the grocery store like two dumbasses running from the bulls at Pamplona. You know, the ones you see on television or YouTube and you just know they're going to take it in the nuts. Hell, at least it wasn't Jenkem. You might not want to click that...
There was a small issue, it was well after midnight and all of the regular grocery stores were long closed, but not too far away was an XTRA, which is/was a 24 hour grocery store that was only slightly out of the way, meaning that it was way, way out of the way, but we were going to get our fifteen fucking pounds of bananas, like it was the pot of gold at the end of the rainbows that I shit out of my ass.
We get to the store and throw a quarter in the cart. I've always thought that was a crock of shit. Like I'm really going to walk all the way back to the fucking store to retrieve my quarter. Fucking thieves. I call it the lazy motherfucker tax, with me being the lazy motherfucker.
We walk into the store and are immediately in the produce section, which is a good thing, because that's where we needed to be. It's just a few feet to the display of bananas.
There's another small issue. There are no scales. How the fuck are we supposed to know when we have fifteen fucking pounds of bananas? No matter, we've got visions of banana skins dancing in our heads.
We decided to just pile the cart up with bananas. At twenty-five cents a pound, it's not like we were going to break the bank. We bought every single fucking banana that they had and nothing else. Just a cart full of fucking bananas. No worries, it's normal behavior, right?. Time to check out.
When we first got to the store it was around one am and the place was empty, but somehow in the two minutes that it took for us to load up the cart, every asshole and their brother had decided to go grocery shopping in the middle of the night and of course, there was only one cashier on duty and the line stretched all the way down the fucking aisle. I mean, who the fuck besides a pothead would go grocery shopping in the middle of the night? Apparently, every asshole and their fucking brother, that's who.
People are starting to notice us. For some reason, we're getting some really odd looks from people. For the life of me, I can't imagine why. It's just a few bananas. Can't a person go to the store and buy a few bananas to smoke? Apparently fucking not.
People started asking questions. We told them it was for a fraternity prank. There were no universities anywhere near us, but people will believe anything. They just shook their heads and smiled. People are fucking morons. Looking back, we should have told them it was for some weird monkey buttsex cosplay, but I'm not sure if that was even a thing back then. Cosplay, I mean. I'm pretty sure there's been plenty of monkey buttsex over the years.
It took us an hour to get to the register, where we had to endure more questions from the cashier, with the same, by now, tired old answer of it being a fraternity prank. Turns out we had misjudged a little bit on the weight. We didn't have fifteen pounds of bananas, we had twenty-seven pounds of fucking bananas. Fuck me running. Better safe than sorry, I guess.
We left the store and headed back to Luke's. It was starting to get very late, but we decided to forge ahead.
We hadn't driven more than two blocks before we were pulled over by the cops. How do you explain twenty-seven pounds of fucking bananas to the cops?
Two officers walked around the car, trying to decide whether they were going to shoot us or not, I guess. They shined their flashlights all around the car and in our eyes, just being general dickheads, when one of them approached the driver's side window and asked Luke for his drivers license, insurance and registration. The other cop came up to my window and asked for my id, shining the flashlight into the backseat and settling its beam upon the bags of bananas.
"What's in the bags?" asked Officer Friendly #2.
"Groceries," I replied.
Officer Friendly #1, "Do you have any illegal drugs or weapons in your possession?"
"No," Luke answered.
"Mind if we take a look inside the car and and make sure there aren't any? We just want to check for everyone's safety."
Luke asked why we were pulled over and the cop mumbled some lame ass excuse. I'll bet they figured they were about to make a nice drug bust. Good luck with that, dumbass.
The cop again asked for permission to search the car, asking if we had something to hide. Luke smirked and told him to go ahead. The cops rifled through the car, making a mess and just being general assholes while leaving the bags of bananas for last. They searched through the bags finding nothing but twenty-seven pounds of fucking bananas.
"I thought you said there were groceries in the bags?" Officer Friendly #2 said.
"There are," I said. "We just bought them at the grocery store."
"But these are bananas," he replied.
Oh, we're talking genius level IQ's, with these two. How special.
"Why yes, they are. Last time I checked, bananas were considered groceries."
"What do you need so many bananas for?" said #2.
"To feed the fucking monkeys," I answered.
"Don't be an asshole," said the asshole cop. "This might still take a while. We need to run your id's and make sure there are no warrants for either of you."
I shut my big fucking mouth.
After harassing us for a few more minutes, the cops sullenly stalked back to their car and we drove off to Luke's house, giggling the entire way.
At least we had step one covered and we were able to move on to step two.
Peel and eat the fruit. Save the peelings.
Yeah, fuck that. Neither one of us was about to go through all of that, but we did consume a few, with the rest of the fruit tossed in the trash.
Step three! Woo-hoo!
Scrape all the insides of the peels with a sharp knife.
Surprisingly, this wasn't as much fun as it sounds. Surprisingly, no emergency room visit was involved. It was very time consuming. Can you imagine the fun and camaraderie that you'll share peeling and scraping twenty-seven pounds of fucking bananas? It was pure fucking bliss, let me tell you.
Step four - Put all the scraped material in a large pot and add water.
That part was pretty painless but the hour was growing late, very late.
Step five!
Boil 3 or 4 hours until it has attained a solid paste consistency.
Wait... What? No fucking way. I guess we forgot about that part. We watched a movie on VHS and we watched a lot of water boiling. It was a shit ton of fun.
We boiled that shit for three hours and it was good and pasty. Meanwhile, the sun was peeking over the rooftops of the adjacent houses. We had been up all night for no sane reason and we still hadn't attained any result, but there was only one last step to go.
Yippee-ky-yay motherfucker.
Step Six
Spread the paste onto cookie sheets and dry in the oven for about 20 minutes. Twenty minutes. What's another twenty fucking minutes when you've already invested an entire goddamn night to a stupid fucking endeavor?
We spread the shit out onto the cookie sheets and pop them into the oven. By now, it was getting close to 7:00 am and we were both bone ass tired. Of course, Mr. Murphy had to pop his head in the door one more time before calling it a night, so of course, it took a lot longer than twenty fucking minutes to dry that shit out. It was more like forty-five fucking minutes, but who's keeping track? After the shit was dry enough, I pulled the dried peel scrapings out of the oven and put them aside to cool. I think we were both falling asleep at this point. We decided to get some rest and then take our banana peels for a test drive.
Luke went to his room and I crashed out on the bed in his sister's room. We both woke up around one o'clock and we wandered into the kitchen, prepared to smoke some Mellow Yellow.
If ever there was a WTF? moment, this certainly qualified as one of them.
Our shit was gone. All traces of criminal activity had been erased.
WTF? WTF? WTF?
No, seriously, WTF?
Our yellow gold was gone. The sick baby that I had nursed throughout the night had disappeared without a trace. What could I do? It's not like I could call the cops and report that my bananadine was missing.
I looked at Luke and as long as I live, I'll never forget the words that I said to him, "What the fuck, dude?"
Just as I'll never forget his fucking reply, "Oh shit, dude, I forgot that the maid was coming today and I guess she cleaned everything up. Sorry."
Sorry? He was fucking sorry? That's some fucked up shit, right there. I had spent the entire fucking night laboring relentlessly toward the goal line, my eye on the prize, only to be cheated out of my moment of fucking glory and he was fucking sorry? FUCK! Luke, when you read this I want you to understand something, that is the one and only time that you came close to death at my hands. Admittedly, it wasn't very close, I mean, I'd have had to dig a hole, clean up the evidence and all that fucking jazz. Not to mention the fact that I'd be suspect numero uno and I know that I'd crack and my ass was just too pretty for prison. Besides there's a whole set of rules for that shit (Read - The Rules). Even more importantly, we all know that I'm much too lazy to be bothered with that shit.
Luke looked at me and I swear to God, he actually asked me, "Do you want to try it again?"
Are you fucking kidding me? I shook my head no. Violently so.
"What are you going to do?" he asked.
"Who? Me? I'll just sit in the fucking corner and smoke my fucking disappointment."
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| At least I can console myself with this fun fact! |
If you like this story, please try this one. Thanks!
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