This year has been a trip—some dude ate a bat and then everyone was paid to stay home for the month of 4/20. Suddenly, we’re supposed to wear masks inside banks and there’s a one-hour window to drink inside bars after sundown, to "reduce crowds" or something. Smoking weed in the park is just fine, because there aren’t any cops around, it seems...but, if you’re not wearing a mask while doing so, an entire complaint of Karens swarms up and hassles you. However, you can just tell them that you’re protesting something and they will give you money and disappear.
Trust me, 2020 is best experienced while high. I couldn’t handle this shit if I wasn’t.
Much like home ownership or firearms purchases, the rate of first-time weed smokers is through the damn roof. And, it makes sense—if you’re unemployed and on house arrest, with your only options for dinner being McDonald’s or Taco Bell, at some point, you can expect Mary Jane to move in, unannounced. Well, that’s fine—more people die every year of [insert right-wing talking point] than they do [insert left-wing paranoia], but no one has ever died from smoking too much weed.
Still, like buying a house or a shotgun, it’s important to know what you’re working with, before the person in the Bi-Mart parking lot tricks you into another bad purchase. With that said, here is my list of things that every new smoker needs to be schooled on...
As anyone with a "bad uncle" knows, the smell of cigarettes is strong enough to last for decades, depending on how traumatic the memory is. Personal details aside, the scent of cigarette smoke travels about ten times as far (and sticks around about ten times as long) as burning plastic, Thai food farts and chicks who say, "I think I’m gonna travel this summer," combined. No one likes the smell of cigarette smoke. However, as a stoner, you will eventually come to like (and, in most cases, love) the smell of pot. This is bad, because, also like cigarette smoke, you will become accustomed to it, unlike those around you (such as potential employers or pissed-off highway cops, who just took a pay cut because anarchists in Portland kidnapped a bronze elk). Because of this, I advise two mainstays of stoner living that are just as essential as regular Mainstays (the white-trash-pretending-to-be-rich furniture line that I am trying to pitch a sponsorship deal with).
The first, is Ozium. It’s like an air freshener, if air fresheners were designed to cover up the smell of decaying flesh. This stuff literally removes the smoke particles from a weed-filled room. The second—and, trust me on this, even though it sounds kind of odd—is lavender soap. For some weird reason, the smell of lavender and the smell of pot are inches apart on the smell spectrum. By constantly washing with lavender soap, your girlfriend’s father will think you’re just one of them "metruh sexels" from Portland (and not some piece-of-shit stoner, who won’t be able to provide for her until Bitcoin pops 20K).
After the initial paranoia and dry mouth, the first thing any new stoner will want to tackle is the snack cupboard. This can be a blessing and a curse, as damn near everything tastes good when you’re high—vegan brownies, water, chicks who travel...all friendly to the palette, given the right strain of cannabis. But, if your snack cupboard (or, in my case, pile on the side of the bed) is full of sugar-based soy products and soy-based sugar products—give or take a box of leftover pizza and whatever this bag of melted candy used to be—you’re going to get fat and lazy. So, fill your cupboards, drawers, and if you still have a clean kitchen, fridge, with healthy, easy-to-consume snacks such as nuts, any crackers that say "health" on the box, leftover pizza without the crust, etc.
The "stoners are lazy" stereotype is harmful, because like most harmful stereotypes, it’s true. We may not be mentally lazy (especially when churning out articles at the last minute or trying to finish the final level in a video game designed for teenagers), but any couch can become more comfortable than the idea of standing up, if you’re high. So, force yourself to smoke outdoors a walk-and-a-half’s distance from your home. It’s fucking Oregon—no one cares, and if anyone says anything, play dumb and say you just moved here from [insert third-world hellhole, such as Idaho] to garnish sympathy and validate your ignorance regarding the law. Then, offer Karen a hit off your blunt and watch how quickly she tells you how to get to a hidden spot around the way. But, like food, be careful while engaging in exercise under the influence—if you screw up and fall in with the wrong crowd, you may end up falling victim to one of the most dangerous, harmful and downright embarrassing exercise cults around: yoga. It’s like CrossFit with ugly people and you should avoid it at any cost.
