All Along the Watchtower

When I was a teenager, I ran with a pretty rough crowd; I was a rocker and a stoner who loved to chase girls and mastermind mischief. Our group never had anything in the way of a leader, but some of us could always be counted on to come up with brilliant ideas to occupy our time. At least they seemed like brilliant ideas at the time, but that's probably because we were young and stupid. Seriously stupid. Most of these brilliant ideas seemed to center around a common theme like, "Hey, let's go find some pussy," or "Hey, let's get fucked up," both of which are, of course, absolutely brilliant ideas, but my personal favorite one was, "Hey, let's get fucked up and find some pussy!"  Unfortunately, the reality of it was that we would rarely find any girls or only some of us did and if you didn't get a girl, you were stuck going Han Solo, but even if we did or we didn't get a girl, you could always count on getting wasted. Some things are just reliable like that and just as reliably, I still can't get a girl...

Occasionally, I would put forth some sort of minimal thought and effort into my critical thinking and come up with some brilliant ideas of my own; a master plan, if you will. Let me give you a tiny tidbit of advice here. If you ever hear me say the words, "I have a plan," run. Just fucking run. Don't look back, just keep running. Trust me, it's for the best, not to mention your own safety. More importantly, if my mention of said plan is followed by the words, "What could possibly go wrong?" forget running, you should probably Duck and Cover.

On second thought, you should probably just go ahead and bend over, stick your head between your legs and kiss your sweet fucking ass goodbye. Yeah, it's that bad.

It was late one Halloween night, when I was a wee lad of just sixteen, or so. We'd been busy scaring trick or treaters, punting pumpkins and festively decorating homes with eggs and toilet paper tinsel ('twas the season and all that shit). The hour had grown late, the streets were deserted and the town was dark, One of us had a brilliant idea which had something to do with getting wasted (it was a pretty popular theme). We had managed to accumulate mass quantities of beer, several bottles of Jack Daniels and a large bag of some very low quality weed. We were drunk, stoned, bored and stupid; a recipe for disaster if ever there was one. Idle hands and minds being the devil's playground and all that shit. We had the will and the means, what we didn't have was common sense and a place to chill. We were trying to figure out where we could go to guzzle down our favorite alcoholic beverages and smoke our wacky weed unmolested. 

There were eight of us, my car and a trunkful of party favors.

That was when it happened; like a bolt out of the blue, I had a sudden epiphany. It seemed as if the heavens opened up and a solitary moonbeam shone upon me like a halo. It was like a lightbulb turning on over my head' Unfortunately, the lightbulb popped and no one noticed.

"Let's go to the water tower," I blurted out.

"And do what?" my friend Dave asked.

"Climb it, dipshit," I responded. "Climb that bitch and get fucked up."

Heads nodded and glory was imagined in the alcoholic fog of our underperforming brains. Everyone agreed that it was indeed a brilliant idea. I honestly believe that we were so messed up that if I had suggested playing tag in traffic, everyone would have agreed that it was a brilliant idea too. Morons. They had the power, they could have stopped the insanity at any time, but nooooo... they just had to listen to me. Who in their right mind listens to me? Sweet jumping baby Jesus.

Dave called shotgun, I closed the trunk and we all piled into my car. I miss that car, it was such a sweet ride. A 1972 LeMans with a big ass 350 and it was cherry as shit.

Dave, Doug and I were in the front seat and when I turned my head, I saw the other five guys were crammed into the back seat like some sort of sausage factory. If that last sentence didn't contain any overtly homoerotic overtones, I don't know what the hell would, but it just wasn't like that, okay? Fuck. I'll tell you when to put your mind in the gutter and it's not going to be in this story.

I cranked up the stereo and we peeled out of the parking lot; nitwits on wheels. It took maybe three minutes of breaking various traffic laws and possibly a misdemeanor or two as we weaved our way to our destination. Miraculously, we arrived at our destination unscathed and without harming anyone else. Property damage was pretty minimal, depending upon your definition of minimal. Your definition, mine and that of law enforcement may tend to differ somewhat. Remember kids, it's only illegal if you get caught.

I hopped out of the car and I watched as the sausage unlinked itself from the back seat and exited the vehicle. Yeah, I know that was a really bad pun. They can't be fucking zingers every fucking time. Work with me here, people.

I walked around to the back of the car and I popped the trunk. I turned around to see all of my friends staring up at the water tower with their mouths hanging open. Idiots. This is why I'm the evil genius.

"Are we really going to climb that?" Doug asked.

"Of course we are,"  I answered.

"B-but what if someone falls or gets hurt?" he stammered.

I looked at Doug as if he were a particularly slow member of Congress and I said, "D-don't be such a pussy. We're going to climb it, we're going to hang out and we're going to get wasted. Grab some beer and get going."

"How are we supposed to get the beer up there?" Dave asked me.

Fucking assholes and their obvious asshole questions get obvious answers from other fucking assholes. Now say that shit three times fast.

"We're going to carry it. How the fuck did you think we we're going to get it up there? It's not like your mom's here and we could use her pussy. Hell, we'd even have room to spare."

"Fuck you, dickhead," Dave shot back.

A witty retort if ever I've heard one. The sting of butthurt was strong in his tone.

"What I meant was," he contined, "How are we supposed to carry everything up there? I know we have to carry it up there, I'm not fucking stupid."

"Yes, you are," I told him. "You're just in denial about it."

Sometimes, it's tough being an evil genius. Like a demented fucking Einstein on meth or crack, or meth and crack, or crack, meth and just a little bit of heroin thrown into the mix for fun (whatthefuckever, you get the picture), I laid out my carefully crafted plan.

"I have a backpack and a gym bag in my car. We can fill them both up with beer. We can stuff more bottles in our pockets, along with the booze and we can just climb on up."

Everyone agreed that it was a brilliant idea and it was. That's why I'm the fucking mastermind, bitches.

We packed up the beer and I went to lift the backpack. Holy shit, it was heavy, but I didn't dare look like a wuss; the pack would atack any weakness. I picked up the backpack and put it on my shoulders, adjusting the straps. The bottles of beer clinked together, making a cheerful little sound. I liked that sound, but I'm a very easily amused idiot.

I was just about to start climbing the ladder when Dave's voice stopped me.

"Wait," he said, "How am I supposed to carry this gym bag up there? I can't climb the ladder with just one hand."

I turned around and I looked at Dave as if he were something that I had just scraped off of the bottom of my shoe.

"Do I have to think of everything for you?" I asked him. "Take off your belt and loop it through the handles of the gym bag, Buckle it up and wrap it around your neck while you're climbing up. That should solve everything."

"I can't do that." Dave squealed like a little girl. "I'll break my neck."

"I know," I said and then I smiled.

I'm such a dick.

"Look, dude. Throw the belt over your shoulder and climb up. The weight will be fine and you shouldn't have any problems."

And there you have it, yet another brilliant idea from yours truly. It's not always easy being an evil genius. It's sort of like a curse, really, You know, like the kind of curse that a really pissed off, batshit crazy Gypsy lady would put on you. I did that once, you know. I actually pissed off and I mean really pissed off, a batshit crazy old Gypsy woman. She actually cursed me, too. I laughed at her. I thought she was going to have a stroke. She was wild-eyed and the spittle was flying. Her voice grew louder and more shrill as she continued to curse me and all my future generations (sorry, boys). Or, maybe she was just asking me if I liked pizza. I don't know, I couldn't understand a single fucking word she said. I'll tell you this, though, I'm still here and she's long dead. Who's the one that's laughing now, bitch? And I'll still be laughing, all the way to Hell.

Gypsies...

Gypsies, tramps and thieves, At least that's what all the people in the town would call them.

Look, this was a fairly simple and easy to accomplish plan. It only had two steps.

Step 1 - Climb the water tower.

Step 2- Get wasted.

How fucking hard could it be? Why did these knuckleheads have to keep trying to screw up the execution of my painstakingly crafted master plan?

I looked up at the water tower. The top of it seemed to be a long, long way off. I took a deep breath, released a long sigh and I started to climb the ladder. The backpack full of beer pulled at my shoulders, weighing me down and making my climb an arduous one, but I was determined to reach the top and I was damn sure going to do it. I can be one stubborn son of a bitch when the mood strikes me.

We were all strangely quiet as we started our ascent, but we were soon back to our normal rapport of insults and stories about the dubious virtue of our mothers. I was about halfway up when I heard a shouted, "Oh, fuck!" followed by a loud crash. The sound of breaking glass shattered the stillness of the night.

"I dropped the beer," Dave yelled.

Well, no shit, Sherlock. Thank you, Captain Fucking Obvious.

"It slipped. It wasn't my fault."

The fuck it wasn't. Everyone yelled obscenities at Dave, but we continued our climb. By my reckoning, we still had well over a case of beer with us, plus the whiskey and the weed, It would have to do. I told everyone to be quiet and to stop making so much noise. I hoped that no one had heard us and called the cops. We'd be shit out of luck and trapped if they showed up.

After what seemed like forever, I made it to the top, which was a good thing because my arms felt so numb, I thought I was going to fall off. I pushed open the grate and I climbed onto the catwalk, with the other guys following shortly thereafter. It had been a hell of a climb and my arms hurt like a bitch, but I acted as is it had been nothing. I cracked open a beer and chugged it down. Nectar of the gods. I think it was Bud, or Mickey's, or some other nasty shit like that. It's not my fault; I didn't know better, I was young and stupid. Now, I'm older and just as stupid, if not more, but at least I know what good beer is and it sure as shit wasn't the swill that we drank that night or any other, to be honest. You know what, though? It worked; it did the trick, it brought the buzz and in the end, that was all that really mattered. Besides, without any girls around, there was no need to go all out and spend our beer money on fancy pants high-brow crap like wine coolers or Boone's Farm Berry Hill. Sometimes, quantity has a quality all its own.

We looked out over the town and beyond, to the bay; it was a beautiful sight and then it was over and done. Time to party.

We had just finished our first round of beer when one of the guys lost his fucking mind and chucked his empty bottle over the railing, where it then followed the laws of gravity by landing below in an explosion of glass. This was quickly followed by several more bottles and subsequent explosions before I was able to put a halt to this particular brand of madness.

"Stop that shit, you fucking imbeciles!" I hissed "People will hear it, if they haven't already, get pissed off, if they aren't already and call the fucking cops, if they haven't already. I really don't feel like getting busted right now, so please stop throwing the bottles and calling attention to us, you stupid fucks,"

Sometimes, it's like I'm The Brain and everyone else around me is a fucking Pinky.

It seems that in the land of the fuckheads, any imbecile can be king. You know what? It's good to be king.

We drank and we smoked, we laughed and we joked; trading gossip and insults and telling stories about all of the girls that we weren't having sex with. We had a really great time for all of about the next twenty minutes, or so.

That's when the first cop showed up. We watched as he got out of his car and looked up at us. He shook his head, walked back to his car, turned his spotlight on and shined the light at us. The light was blinding.

Personally, I thought it was pretty rude. Fucking inconsiderate, if you ask me.

The cop looked back up at us and then he yelled, "What in the hell are you boys doing up there? Get your asses down here, right now!"

Crickets. We didn't say a word.

"I ain't fuckin' wit' you boys," the cop yelled. "I said to get down here right now and I meant every goddamn word."

"No! Fuck you!" my buddy Mike yelled back. "I ain't coming down until I finish my beer."

You know, that might not have been the best thing for him to say, you know, given our current situation and all.

The cop yelled again, "I'm gonna' kick yer ass when I get my hands on you, boy,"

The cop then picked up his radio and called in the situation just as a second squad car pulled up. About a minute later, they were joined by a supervisor,

We were pretty fucked.

Whose brilliant fucking idea was this, anyway? It really wasn't my idea that was at fault, though, it was the  fault of the idiots who botched the execution of my perfect plan that were at fault. So.... not it.

We quietly discussed our options and we didn't have too many. Okay, we only had one. We were trapped and we knew it, but we didnt think that the cops would climb the water tower to come after us. In for a penny, in for a pound, we decide to stay up there and party until we finished off all of our consumables. Since we were getting busted, we might as well go out with a bang and Fuck The Police! Damn, I'm so fucking gangsta.

Two more spotlights were now trained on us, joining the first. More squad cars arrived. The shit that we were in was getting deeper by the moment.

The police continued to order us to come down and we continued to ignore them. We kept our eyes on the prize, which was becoming incoherently intoxicated and we were winning. Burnouts 1, Cops 0. We kept drinking our beer and passing the bottle of Jack Daniels back and forth, while snoking bowl after bowl of whatever that nasty shit was that was trying to pass itself off as marijuana.

I should have expected it, but I wasn't all that long before empty bottles started sailing over the railing again. For some reason, that seemed to really get the cops all agitated and shit. We heard the squelch of a PA.

"You boys probably think that you're pretty funny right about now and y'all probably think that you're pretty screwed. Let's all be reasonable here. You'd best do the smart thing. the wise thing and climb on down, right now. We'll get this all sorted out and talk it over some. Y'all be home before the night is over. Do the right thing, fellas and come on down." said the artificially amplified Voice of Reason and Authority.

This completely reasonable offer was met with a ragged chorus of, "Fuck yous." I must confess that the harmonizing wasn't all that it could have been, but we were a tad tipsy, so I blame the alcohol for our lackluster acapella performance.

Doug suddenly stood up, said, "I have to pee," walked over to the railing, whipped it out and just let it fly. Literally. Doug was treating the cops to a golden shower. 

I really hoped that the police appreciated a little kink. I mean, they're cops, after all and what cop doesn't appreciate a little kink? Pleas, pleas and please, do not leave any stories about kinky cops in the comments section. On second thought, if you have kinky cop stories, go ahead and leave them in the comments section. I really want to read that shit. Btw, I didn't misspell please, it's pleas, as in pleading or begging, so who's smirking now, you smug motherfucker?

Doug was pissing on the cops. Holy fuck! We were doomed. We were fucked. We were doomfucked. I couldn't go to jail, I was way too pretty for prison. It was weird, but a strange sort of calm descended over us and one by one we all stood up and walked over to the railing, where we all joined Doug in showing our appreciation for the boys in blue. Our eight gun salute did not go unnoticed. We watched and laughed as the cops scattered like cockroaches, panicking and running about. You'd have thought we were hitting them with mortars, for fuck's sake.

We didn't actually hit any of the cops, but we did clean the dust off of a couple of their cruisers. Needless to say, they weren't very appreciative of our efforts. Honestly, common courtesy just seems to have gone by the wayside. We then hunkered back down, ignoring the police and their blah, blah, blah chatter over the PA. We finished off the alcohol and the pot, talking about what we were going to do once we got out of jail and wondering if we would be able to escape from the country before our parents could catch us and kill us. Our prospects weren't looking very good. We knew we'd have to come down eventually and as soon as we sobered up enough, we would make the long climb down to face the axeman. Do be careful with that axe, Eugene.

After we had sobered up some, we did manage to climb back down without losing anyone; I wasn't able to get close enough to my target, which is a good thing. I guess. Que sera, sera.

When we hit the ground, the cops roughed us up a little bit, before tossing us into squad cars and taking us down to the police station. We weren't handcuffed or anything, just thrown into the back of the police cars with a 'thump'. 

"Ouch!"

"Watch your head."

When we arrived at the police station, we were bitched at, yelled at, screamed at (spittle flying from the mouth and everything) and alternately, we were pushed, shoved, tripped, slapped and smacked upside our respective heads. I remember a couple of those hits had me seeing stars. Talk about a fucking buzzkill.

In the end, nothing serious happened to us. The police called our parents and allowed them to decide our fate, They did this with a particular relish in my case, as most of the police officers involved knew my father personally and they knew exactly what he would do to me, once I was released. I would have been safer in jail. The police knew as well as I did that my father would be angry that I had embarassed my family and pissed off the cops. He thanked the officers for their discretion and shook hands with each of them, assuring them that I would get what was coming to me. The cops laughed and told me to have a good time when I got home. Fuckers.

And it really sucked when I got home. My father kicked my ass ten ways from Sunday and my mother cheered him on, wading in every now and then to smack me with her wooden spoon. If you're Italian, you know exactly what I'm talking about. They're a staple in every Italian household except mine, I hate the fucking things. I got to play with one of those more than any other toy during my childhood. The fun factor really sucks.

At the end of the day, I considered it a learning experience; indeed, I learned a valuable lesson, that night.

Always have an escape route.

Thanks for stopping by. If you enjoyed this story, please check out this one:

Who's The Boss?

They Call It Mellow Yellow

The flow of information at our fingertips today is almost beyond comprehension. You can find anything you want or desire on the Internet. And when I say anything, I do mean anything. There are no limits.

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:

The Anarchist Cookbook - FBI Files

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!!!

No, we didn't try to get high from scorpions. Maybe if we had seen this.

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.

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.

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."

At least I can console myself with this fun fact!

If you like this story, please try this one. Thanks!

Don't Hiss Yourself