This is a story from the time when I was a younger, and less mature than I am today. Oh, about last week or so. Badum pssht. I’m just kidding you, folks. It’s also a short story, much shorter than the Pullitzer-worthy one I wrote the other day, which no one read except Ringo.
It’s about drugs, sure; but it’s about past acquaintances with the stuff. Please treat it like that.
Like that one, this story is also told in dialogue. It starts out with younger (not wiser, and certainly not smarter) Me calling up my buddy Pádraig, who had a roaring trade in doing school stuff for people (for a price), tobaccy, contraband, and sometimes Marijuana. Just about anything you needed, Pappy could get it for you. It was The Syndicate, man. No one ever bought any cigarettes though, and rightfully so of course. The tobacco companies were using Sin Sticks to lure little children away from Jesus with their mass sex appeal and grown-up sophistication and everyone knew that. When we all grew up and turned 30 we realized that was just a story they told to scare little kids. But cigarettes weren’t what the cool kids were smoking and the duct tape fad died quickly. I was always the type to follow the crowd. I had my own thing in my own world most of the time, but I reasoned if something’s the cool thing to do, check it out; there’s probably something to it.
So at the time I was, let’s say, lead astray and had an interest in purchasing certain herbed goods. About a dime bag or so. Pádraig was perfectly happy to ablige me, at a satisfactorily but not outrageously over-charged rate. Problem was his source was supposed to meet him at the baseball fields for a drop but instead literally dropped the stash on the ground and left it there. Pádraig didn’t have a car and couldn’t get a ride there to check it out, not even from his parents. He told me about that so a couple days later I called his place to see what new had happened since.
Me: “Hey Paps” (We called him ‘Paps’ in those days, his baby sister could not pronounce his name correctly and called him “Pappy”. His buddies found out about it and called him that too and eventually it become “Paps.” It was a thing we had.)
Pádraig: “Hey.”
Me: “It’s been raining lately.”
Pádraig: “Has been.”
Me: “Yep.”
Pádraig: “Writing a paper on Mao Ze Dong.”
Me: “Really now?”
Pádraig: “Really.”
Me: “Whatdoyaknow.” He laughed at that. I continued, “I was wonderin about the homework we had in… English the other day, do you have what the one thing was?”
Pádraig"I can’t seem to find it."
Me: “Not the other thing, but that one thing you had? The one thing of homework.”
Pádraig: “Turns out I didn’t have it at all…”
“That sux.”
Pádraig: “Massively.”
“Did you ever get a ride there to look?”
Pádraig: “Yeah.”
“Sucks, mein. I’d say that was a major blow GPA-wise.” I followed this up with a quickly-said, “Gold. Platinum. Ass.”
Pádraig: “Wait. Wha?”
“I mean, the loss of such an important assignment sucks a lot, especially when you take into consideration the rise in GPA that you won’t get for not having those things that we mentioned earlier.”
Pádraig laughed again and said, “Now I’m… confused.”
Me: “Jesus, Pad, the POT, the POT!”
:smack: We were smooth. Guess what happened next?
‘Oohhh. Wait. I don’t know what you’re- Prank caller! Prank caller!’
