2006-01-19

Potheads in da 'Hood

My whole neighborhood smells like a doobie.

I don�t know how I didn't notice this before, or maybe there is a new Gang Lord in the area, or something... you know it used to the Skinheads? There was gunfire all the time and a guy got stabbed in the ally behind my bedroom, although now that I think about it, the neighbor who told me that she heard the stabbing drinks a lot. I mean, A LOT.
There hasn't been too much gun fire, I mean no more than is average in Tucson, AZ. This is the wild west, you know. I'm thinking that the skinheads have moved to a new home base and they've been replaced with Potheads.
I�ve seen more Volkswagon makes and models than I can shake a didgeridoo at and I see hippies wherever I look.
Except when I look over at the half-way house� none of the registered sex offenders look like hippies.

But seriously, while I am walking the dog, the minute the sun dips below that big Western skyline, is the minute that I�m pretty convinced every house within a four block radius turns on some Cypress Hill and sparks up the bong. It must be an evening ritual for the new band of loser-stereotypes. I guess that when they get home from the working at a co-op all day, they change out of Birkenstocks and into something more comfortable like hemp socks, and settle �round the coffee table for the evening toke.
A hippy cocktail hour, if you will.
And I will, because I smell that shit every time I walk the dog in the evening.

Given that I�m so innocent and such a good girl, prissy-face, you probably want to know how I know what doobitude smells like, right?
You�re hardly going to believe this, but one time in college?
I inhaled.
For like, five or six years.
I loved you, Mary Jane.
I did love you so very, very much.

Somewhere around October, I stopped walking the dog in the evenings because I started to take her to the dog park. Her neighborhood dog buddies moved and I was lonely and I thought that for sure I could score in two ways at the dog park: A tired dog and a cute date.

Neither has really been the case. I still take the dog up there a lot but I�m totally resigned to the fact that the ONLY thing she wants to do is watch me throw the ball, chase the ball, and wait for me to throw the ball again. The fucking ball rules her life and she's probably got some kind of addiction problems about the ball but what can I do? I would be a hypocrite if I tried to tell her that balls are bad.

Needless to say, she�s not there for the dogs and no available dudes have caught my eye.

Recently, like this week, recently, I started walking her at night again. My newly nauseating work schedule has prevented me from wanting to rush home, tidy up, deal with the 20 pounds of love hurling itself at my chest repeatedly, and go to the dog park so that I can stand around and shiver and throw the ball over and over and over and over and over. Especially unappealing is this option, ever since it got cold. Like I want to freeze my ass off so the dog can chase a ball.
Think again, doglet.
We�re going for a brisk walk.
Walking and shivering just seems like a better choice, you know?
And this way, I don't miss the first part of Dancing with the Stars.

I need to be able to get some exercise in for myself and lately that�s not possible during the work-day. I could go after work but that leaves Rosie way too much time to figure out how to get my backpack off of the top shelf, pack up all of her treats and hit the road. I could go after the dog park but then I would miss my programs on the TV.

The compromise is clear: If I walk the doglet briskly, both me and myself win! There�s no cruel choosing between TV and health.
Yay!

For the past three nights, I�ve forsook the dog park and leashed up the pup for a long and brisk walk in the hours after work but before good TV starts. It took me a while to figure out what the smell was because while I'm sure I could smell ganja at a party, when you're walking down a street that is across the way from the titty bar, you cold technically be smelling anything. Last night, it clicked like the lock on my sophomore year dorm room.

Chronic.

Once I identified the smell, I realized why I have come home from each walk this week feeling a little dizzy and out of it.

Take note: Rosie doesn�t seem to care. She didn�t seem light-headed, she didn�t get the munchies, and she didn�t feel compelled to go home and listen to jam bands, like I did.

Which is weird because easily, the entire half radius of my little ghetto reeks like the pancho I insisted on wearing for 1/3 of my junior year without washing it. It seriously smells like there might be a "Brownie Bakery", if you know what I mean, manufacturing "Brownies" for a Leftover Salmon and Widespread Panic Tour. The WHOLE tour, not just a couple of West Coast dates, man. I'm dying to get home and walk the dog to see if this little development is one that has more than seeds and stems or if it's a figment of my imagination and the Skinheads never really left. I guess I'll either get caught in some cross-fire or I'll get back to my house and smell like college.

Hey you guys?
Ummmmm.... just so you know, Phish broke up and JerBear�s dead.

It�s time to stub out the doob, empty the bong, toke the last bowl, and while you�re at it, cut your hair.

Dreadlocks are SO last century.
No wait! I take that back! Dreadlocks are way better than skinheads. You can keep the dreads, keep the dreads. Compromise, keep the dreads.

arizonasarah at 1:13 p.m.

previous | next