beware of English lit

Last summer, I decided to roll my first joint. Many a joint had been smoked by me, but never have I attempt the craft of rolling my own. I was bored and figured, what the hell. With no actual joint paper handy, I reached for the next best thing: The Norton Anthology of English Literature. “Finally I am going to use this book, after 8 long years. Gotta get my money’s worth,” I thought. So there I went, rolling up those super thin slivers of paper, which it occurs to me, could also be used as toilet paper. [In an alternate desperate universe only.] In a veiled act of vengence, I created a filter using the business card of a former boss from a job that I happily quit on the second month. The end result was an assortment of tight, long, elegant-looking jibbas. There were three in all. I was pretty proud of my work, being that it was my first-ever attempt.

Joint One was smoked on the back patio of Bazzaar Café in the Richmond just before Jake took the stage for his solo performance. When it was first lit, I burned like a torch, and had to immediately be blown down. No subtlety in those pages. About two tokes into it the paper disappointingly put itself out. The pages also lacked benevolence. By the third or fourth round, people started getting really suspicious, so I came clean and told them how I created the thing. Of course, everyone had a good laugh at my expense and began insulting the joint. Luckily, it started to rain, so we headed back indoors. Saved!

Joint Two was smoked ‘round a campfire, as joints should be smoked, up at Hendy Woods with Eric & Dan. We were passing it around with some luck keeping it lit, and when it came to me I got a decent toke, but suddenly there was an orange poof in my eye! The burning embers of the pages came bursting upwards in an attempted assault at my vision. Lucky for my excellent lid-snapping reflexes, no major harm was done. But before I could finish screaming, I reached for my eye for a quality check and felt the short, stiff bristles of what used to be eyelashes! Eeek! My lashes were half-burned down and became hardened nubs. This was a big deal to me, but no one else seemed to care. It was confirmed the next day, that I had indeed suffered a freak pot-smoking accident.

Joint Three was found just last week, when we were cleaning out a box of Burning Man supplies. For some tragic reason, we had run out of weed just before Burning Man last year, and only brought a tiny bit of stash with us. Once there, we were too scared and overjoyed and busy and sweaty and overwhelmed to smoke regularly, so amazingly this joint survived the week and therefore an entire year inside a large Tupperwear box, smooshed up against a pair of goggles that were resting on a pair of fake tits. We decided to spark up the ol’ fella to celebrate his almost one-year-old birthday. We passed it back and forth and it stayed lit for the majority of the time as we wrote stories about Bill Cosby slowly going insane and how pug-obsessed pet owners are a special breed of humans. Anyway, just now as I type this, I look down at my sleeve and notice a gigantic burnt hole in the sleeve. DAMN YOU NORTON ANTHOLOGY AND YOUR SUBSTANDARD PAGES!!