Putting the Grass in Blue Grass

This is a tale of how I was kind-of-accidentally-yet-sort-of-intentionally drugged.

At pretty much the last minute on last Friday, four of us decided to travel to San Francisco for the weekend. Phoebe wanted to attend a blue grass festival and I... well I just wanted to get away and do something interesting. It's not that I don't like blue grass music, but the last time I was excited for someone playing a banjo was Kermit the Frog. I didn't go for went to be social, to have an adventure, to see Desiree who so kindly shared her home with us.

The festival attracted about 100,000 people, mostly of the hippie variety. I joked as we walked two and a half miles to the park that it wouldn't be that difficult to locate since we could just follow the stench of B.O. and weed. The truth wasn't far off, and yet it was charming all the same. These people were kindly, they shared, recycled, and rode their bikes and/or took public transportation to reach the event. This is a far more ideal society than that of their "civilized" polluting, littering, rude, selfish counterparts.

When I got a little claustrophobic in the mob, we made our way into the woods on a hill overlooking the stage. From there, we made a little spot for ourselves in the greenery and dirt; Anna and Desiree wore a boa and put on body glitter because while you should be able to do that anytime you want, it was safer since no one was going to judge them there. Our spot afforded us a nice view of the stage, as well as passersby unwilling to wait in the line for the port-a-potties who instead snuck into the trees to urinate. One person peed for what seemed like the duration of an entire song directly in front of us, concealing this activity from everyone, yet still sharing it with us. After a minute passed, Anna exclaimed, "It's magical!" I'm pretty sure she was referencing the body glitter, but it was equally as appropriate for the perseverance of the tinkle.

Also by the woods, we happened upon a pair of friendly, entrepreneurial hippies. Beware of friendly hippies, as they are all about peace, love, and drugging you. We decided to stimulate the local economy by buying their homemade baked goods for cheap and found them to be more than what we bargained for.

Now, I don't want to portray myself as naive. Given the source of the brownies, without officially knowing that they included a special ingredient, we knew to expect a certain special ingredient. I went to a liberal liberal (repetition intentional) arts college, so I'm familiar with marijuana. I've had friends who love the substance, though I've never been a fan myself. That said, whereas in high school I was totally judgmental of pot, I now recognize that it is a pretty harmless diversion for some that is less addictive and dangerous than alcohol. For this reason, I'd support its legalization, though I would not personally be a frequent consumer.

As some of my friends gobbled down their brownies, I took one whiff of mine, felt sick to my stomach, then put it away uneaten in my backpack. Our group traveled from the woods and found the tiniest plot of land a good distance from the stage. We pretty much crammed ourselves in a non-existent area between other groups' blankets. No one said anything, of course, because they're friendly hippies and, you know, this land is your land - this land is our land. I ate some peanut butter and crackers then, noticing my friends didn't seem high, slathered some peanut butter on my brownie as well, taking a couple of bites found it gross and decided I did not want to partake.

The scent of marijuana was strong throughout the field; people were openly smoking as they listened to the music. Phoebe made a comment about how there was "Too much pot for babies," then curled into a ball and became incommunicative. Soon after, Michael Michael was giggling a lot. Glad I wasn't in that mindset, I maintained a normal, sober, intelligent conversation with Desiree for at least another hour. Feeling tired, I then laid down and closed my eyes for five, ten minutes tops.

When I got up, the world felt different. Half the time I felt normal, while half the time I felt funny. It came in waves and alternated about every ten seconds. I tried to resume my conversation with Desiree, but found it unsuccessful. As Desiree would later tell me, she thought she was the one having the difficulty understanding since I had exhibited no prior signs of being anything but coherent. When other concert-goers began encroaching on our plot of land, Desiree said, "I think we're losing space." I was excited , "I was just thinking the same thing." Then realizing what she meant, I added, "Wait, I meant on a metaphysical level." I had been lost in thought about the world and the concept of space altogether, clearly I wasn't high, I was being far too profound.

It's funny how I was in denial with myself about my situation. I was just tired. I only had a couple of nibbles, I couldn't possibly be stoned. Maybe I was just a little sick. Then I was convinced Desiree was messing with me. The reason I couldn't understand her was her fault. I confronted her, "Are you saying real words?" Her response was so genuinely confounded that I knew she wasn't merely tricking me. A few minutes later I had to ask whether I was even talking at all. I couldn't discern between the thoughts in my head and the words I spoke aloud. At that point, I had to acknowledge that I was not in a sober state of mind.

I felt bad, because now there was no sober company for Desiree, which I had been happy to be previously, but there was really nothing I could do. Cold, tired, and unable to hold a coherent conversation, Desiree went home. Meanwhile, Anna, who had been watching music at another stage, called to get our location to meet up with us. I was pretty much useless, however, in communicating anything with her and vice versa. She asked me to text directions which was one of the most difficult tasks of my life. Then I got a couple of more texts asking me to please send the text so that she could find us. I was frustrated since I had been sending them, but as I later discovered, I had been sending them to the wrong number altogether. Finally, I called her again, but Anna couldn't hear me over the music. I tried shouting the nearest landmark -- a kettle corn stand. "Kettle corn," I said. "Kettle corn. Kettle corn." Details beyond that were impossible to articulate. Anna still said she couldn't hear me, so I screamed louder. "KETTLE CORN! KETTLE CORN! KETTLE CORN!" At about my eleventh shouting of this, I recognized that I was screaming over the sweet sound of blue grass and was probably disrupting the experience for the others.

Eventually, Anna found us, I'm still not quite sure how, but things remained difficult. Phoebe was still bent into awkward postures clearly having a bad time. Michael Michael thought the other people were talking about us, which I'm not sure whether is true or not. I'm sure we were a sight to see, but a lot of them were wasted in some manner, too. I really wanted to not be in that moment anymore so I told my friends I wanted to "be below sleep - I want to be unconscience." Michael Michael, paranoid about the world, freaked out that it was some sort of suicidal wish, but I couldn't really tell you what it meant. Simultaneously, I was freaking out about the fact that I said "unconscience" instead of "unconscious" and believing this to be my worse sin while on drugs yet, tried to amend my statement. "Unconscience," I said trying to correct myself, only saying it wrongly again. "Unconscience. No! Unconscience!" I probably said it six or seven times incorrectly while desperately trying to say it correctly, each time only frustrating me more. Anna laughed at me. I still wanted to be unconscious.

The music was pretty secondary, perhaps tertiary to the experience. Most of the time I couldn't tell you what was going on on stage. I neither came to see it nor could pay attention to it anyway. I do know that the giant tree above the stage looked just like a piece of broccoli and I occasionally imagined eating off its head. Finally, I calmed down and played cards with Anna, which Michael Michael was in awe of since he could do almost nothing functional. Everything went swell until I felt a sharp pain in my butt, which prompted me to stand up and scream "Owwww! MY BUTT!" When I couldn't offer an immediate explanation, Anna was convinced I shat myself and was starting to figure out how we would deal with me having pooped in my pants amidst tens of thousands of people. But I hadn't pooped my pants, I merely suddenly felt like I was sitting on a root or something large and uncomfortable. After standing up, however, I saw that there was nothing. I then tried to rub the ground with my hand to show that there was some non-existent thing protruding that caused the incident, but my friends didn't buy my Princess and the Pea scenario, nor should they have.

Walking home was a bit terrifying. My waves of comprehensibility started outweighing the incomprehensible ones, but it was still scary and I didn't want to feel that way anymore. On our long trek home, we stopped at a thai restaurant to rest and eat. Although it was nearly full, no one in the restaurant was talking which was creepy for us in our conditions, we were hoping to be unassuming. That didn't really happen, unfortunately, no thanks to Phoebe passing out against the wall.

Desiree took us out later at night to meet up with her friend at some trendy bar. It was pretty embarrassing because her friend was super nice, but all of us were zombies to the world. Anna was done with people and danced by herself in a corner. Michael Michael attempted conversation with Desiree and friend, but could never manage more than a couple of words. I probably appeared comatose, or Bernie in a real life adaptation of Weekend at Bernie's. I could not keep my eyes open or say anything, at one point going "unconscience." Even when a dramatic bar brawl broke out about five feet from me, I could barely open my eyes enough to peek at the events.

As we stumbled home, the one thing we could agree upon was that whatever was in the brownies was not marijuana. Or at least not just marijuana. Those drugs royally messed with us. There's no lasting effects, thankfully, but I've learned a lesson in knowing what I'm consuming for my own well being. Damn hippies.

P.S. It was also sort of fun.