Every Good Boy Deserves Fudge

Before our oldest son, Aidan, went to middle school, he attended a private institution known for the arts. The music program was mostly percussions and bells. There was no school band nor jazz ensemble. Whenever my wife, Christine, and I attended a concert, I was struck at how mediocre the students performed which was odd since the kids had to play only one note. I imagined that this private arts school, costing well over $20,000 a year, would be staffed with former pot smoking hippies from the 60's who were all avant guard thinkers. I couldn't have been more wrong. Most of the instructors at one time worked for a parochial school, that is, the only place that pays less than a private institution.

When I attended the first concert, I was ready to be blown away by a high caliber of musicianship. Nine grades plus kindergarten and pre-K performed for the Winter Arts Festival which included some music as well as contemporary modern dance that dragged on for hours. The look of boredom on the parent’s faces was in juxtaposition to the middle school headmaster expressing to the crowded auditorium,

"Your children are soooo talented!"

After an hour I was thinking of a different adjective, something along the lines of uninspiring banality. Being a parent with a first child, I learned to scale back my expectations. A colleague encouraged me to attend a concert at the local public middle school to hear the student jazz band. I went by myself because Christine was home with our newborn, William. I sat in the crowd as a spectator, not a parent. As the concert went through the music program, I was impressed. When the jazz band played, I was mesmerized. I called Christine and held my phone aloft.

"What's going on here?" I thought.

The jazz band was so crisp and vibrant as they played the music my father listen to. I left that night resolved to move Aidan to the local public school. At the time, my boy didn't play an instrument. I wanted him to take piano, but he wasn't interested.

When he started school, he was musically a year behind all the other kids. The music program was mandatory. His music teacher, Mr. Hilbie, suggested that he play the trumpet. Aidan struggled but kept with it. After a few weeks, Mr. Hilbie told Christine that Aidan had "a natural ability and should take private lessons." He called a local music instructor, Jose Cordero, who I heard was hard to get, urging him to fit Aidan into a lesson. I thought trumpet instruction would be just another thing I ferried my son to in which he would be half interested.

While in Mr. Cordero's waiting area to his music studio, I noted the pictures and memorabilia he had on display. Although now retired from the military, he played in the Coast Guard Band on active duty. He seemed strangely familiar to me, then I realized who he was. I had seen him in uniform on television playing at presidential inaugurations. He confirmed what Mr. Hilbie had heard in Aidan.

At the private school, the feedback was always negative. They were sure Aidan suffered from attention deficit disorder having badgered us relentlessly to have him tested. A third of the student body were on Ritalin. Almost all of them were boys. I was incredulous having recognized that my son’s problem was boredom. That and he was in a classroom with over thirty students.

One time at the private school when I was offering help to Aidan’s first grade teacher, she was going over a lesson on making change. She was particularly forward with her assertion that my son had a short attention span. When she noticed as I had that Aidan was staring blankly out the window while his friends were all eager to answer a question, she called on Aidan certain that she would catch him daydreaming.

"How much is it Aidan?"

Without turning from the window, he answered monotonically,

"A dollar thirty-three."

He was correct. Instead of praising him, his teacher ignored his response. Of course she did since it didn't fit her diagnosis. I never doubted my son's abilities. Being a new parent, I just didn't know what to do about it. Sometimes, imperceptible forces push you in the right direction and away from the things that don't work. I was an engineer and computer scientist. The arts were something I thought appreciation for was just as good as participation in. I was never a good musician. I often say that I was pretty bad at the guitar until I got worse. Christine took piano lessons for years and was moderately accomplished.

I experienced music through my eyes rather than my ears. I looked at a staff full of notes, memorized what a symbol meant then learned how to translate each to an instrument. My son learned what a note sounded like rather than how it appeared. When he was in middle school, music was mandatory. In contrast, both Christine and I were not required to take music in school.

Now, I had two accomplished musicians telling me that Aidan had a natural embouchure. I wasn't sure what that was, but I figured it was a good thing. For the first time in eight years a teacher said something positive about my son. A year later, Aidan was trying out for the middle school jazz band. Mr. Hilbie had high expectations of his students. It's no coincidence that most, if not all, the band members were on the honor roll. Aidan was eager to perform trumpet solos which propelled him in other studies resulting in high honors. After a successful audition, he held his trumpet aloft as he exclaimed,

"A year ago I didn't know what end to blow into, and now I'm in the jazz band!”

I attended a Catholic school for secondary education so while I was exposed to some music, there wasn't any school bands. When I went to the public high school in my town, I tried out for the jazz band. I played the upright bass. Not only was I tone deaf, I couldn't keep time at all. Making matters worse the school's bass was fretless so I had to hear the notes to play them correctly. None of this deterred me.

Earlier I had taken a composition class which was considered the hardest music course in high school. Many of the band kids avoided that class as they regarded writing an original piece of music as next to impossible. I don't know what made me think I could compose music. Making matters worse I sometimes had to recall that every good boy deserves fudge just to determine which note was represented by a line on the staff. I struggled. My music teacher, Mr. Trevor, helped me tremendously. Somehow I managed to completed my score. It was no masterpiece. A little more sophisticated than a nursery rhyme, it was an easy piece to play. The jazz band got through my score on the second take. Many of the musicians in the band were quite accomplished, and I was proud when they told me that my piece was fun to play.

Pride makes you do stupid things. Fresh off the success of my one and only arrangement, I decided to try out for the jazz band. Mr. Trevor was less than encouraging. He needed a bass player, but his years of experience and sound musical talent led him to believe that I was not up to the task. He was right. I was not a good musician. Given ideal instruction and unlimited practice, I would never be any good. To me the bass was an easy instrument to play because it had less strings than a guitar and was in the background, but don't try to float that by Paul McCartney. For some reason Mr. Trevor wanted me to audition with the jazz band instead of with just him. Undaunted, I practiced night and day in preparation for my performance before the entire musical student body.

On the day of my audition, I first played by myself. When I finished, Mr. Trevor said,

"Okay, try it again, but this time play the notes on the staff."

My second take was better, but he pointed out that I played too slowly as he clapped out 3/8 time like a metrodom. For my third try Mr. Trevor summoned the whole band. I didn't have a full score in front of me so I was unsure when I was to come in. As everyone brought their instruments to bear, I noticed that they all concentrated on the band director. Thats right! Mr. Trevor would tell me when I was to start playing.

Most musicians might recall the first time they played with a brass band. Some of the auditorium seats are better than others when it comes to experiencing sound. When playing an instrument from inside a band, you would think you have the best seat in the house, but the nearest instruments often can be so loud that you are unable to hear the rest of the band. When I took my queue to play, I knew right off I came in too early. When I tied to adjust, I fell behind. As we finished, I was pretty much on time, but I knew the bass line should be driving the beat not following it. The distain on the face on the drummer told me that I screwed up, and everyone knew it.

Mr. Trevor scowled as he shook his head. To this day I think he was hoping I would just quit instead of continuing to punish the ears of the actual musicians surrounding me. Some of the students vocalized their opinion of my poor playing ability to their neighbor. Others whispered as they looked in my direction. Although I knew I was over my head, I don't know why I did what I did next, but for some reason I blurted out,

"One more time."

Everyone readied their instruments as if directed by the conductor rather than the baseless instructions of a lousy bass player. Mr. Trevor followed the familiar routine after the jazz band was locked and loaded. He momentarily looked about oddly before he motioned the band to play. I came in closer to my queue, and played more forcefully. In retrospect, I wasn't angry nor was I stubborn. I just wanted to experience playing from inside a band one more time. On this last go around I did much better, enough to stifle any overt critism. If this had been a play, the contortions culminating in the frown on my Mr. Trevor's face would be described by critics as method acting. The music teacher had just taken direction in front of the whole jazz band from a student, summoned for evaluation as a bassist, who couldn't keep beat to a Devo tune. When he cobbled together some semblance of composure, Mr. Trevor said,

"Again."

After a brief pause, he added,

"Just you."

I readied the school issued, fretless bass as Mr. Trevor stared sternly in my direction. He raised his baton then froze at the apex. His hands sunk unceremoniously to the podium. When they came to rest, Mr. Trevor commanded,

"Sing it."

I was unsure what he wanted. Did he want me to sing the notes? I can barely find where they are supposed to be played on the neck of this bulky string instrument, and he wants me to sing? I don't sing even when I'm alone. Some of the students looked about and smiled broadly. Others were giddy.

"Sing?" I asked.

"Yes," Mr. Trevor replied, "Sing it."

I could've packed it in right there to cut short the torment, but with little hesitation I belted out my best interpretation of the notes on the staff before me, much to the amusement of the entire high school jazz band. When the laughter subsided, I backed away from the music stand before me. Returning the large instrument to the case resting on the floor, I ran my fingers over the strings for the last time before I closed the lid. I collected the sheet music from the stand then retrieved a piece of paper from a notebook in my backpack. As I threaded through my once and only bandmates, I stopped in front of Mr. Trevor's podium where I neatly placed the papers then turned for the exit. Walking down the hallway, the jazz band began to play. The sound was wonderful.

When Aidan climbed into high school, his audition for the jazz band went pretty smoothly. He made it on his first try. Aidan coupled his love of music with technology to streamline the process of writing music. He's remastered arrangements based on the music in video games like the MII Channel and Chemical Plant Zone from Sega's Sonic. He also wrote a score for Memories by the band Lucky Chops which was to be played by the school ochestra. Unfortunately the public concerts were cancelled his senior year due to the pandemic. He spent his time editing individual tracks from students to create virtual performances for the school's online coffee house concerts. Currently, he is working on an orchestral arrangement based on a three part medley from the game Deltarune.

When Aidan learned that the education board in our town was considering dropping the music requirement from the middle school curriculum, he went to the town meeting to tell his story, how mandatory participation brought out the best in him. The board listened to many former students explain that exposure to music at an early age helped shape the kind of student they were now, but unfortuately the music program was pushed off to an after school activity making way for “more important” subjects like environmental science and personal finance.

I've read an article recently that espoused the idea that playing an instrument makes a kid a better public speaker, more of a leader. Studies show that musical kids do better in school. I have a friend who adamantly says that musicians make better STEM students. Even if this is true, I think it's misguided as was my long time belief that appreciation of art is just as good as participation. Some people need to express themselves in music and that is good in itself even though our pragmatic society would only note its value if it helps students with math or science. I believe now that music is important not just to help kids with more practical studies. It is good in itself.

I never again played an instrument after I auditioned for the jazz band in high school and was doubtful of the value of doing so when Aidan took up the trumpet. When I was in the composition class back then, Mr. Trevor once asked us if all the conceivable songs would someday be written. He told us that the number of unique sequences which can be formed by twelve notes was infinite. He was wrong. It's not infinite. There are 479,001,600 permutations which can be made with twelve notes. I know this because when I was in high school, I deduced the formula by listing all the sequences formed from two, three and four notes.

That's what was on the extra piece of paper I added to the sheet music which I left on Mr. Trevor's podium.

Editor's Note: Based on a post originally published on June 19, 2018.

What It’s Like Living with a Superhero

Our youngest,Willy, occasionally wears a cape. At first I wasn’t sure if he had any special powers, but then they revealed themselves in a not so subtle way. You see, William has “super X strength,” that is, might disproportionate to his size.

Willy is in the 75th percentile for height and 100th for width. He’s a very stocky, dense kid. The gravity must have been greater on his home planet compared to that here on earth. In 2018, he started second grade weighing in at a fourth grader's mass. He’s unusually muscular. Instead of baby fat, Willy has a six pack. It’s not easy raising a superhero. They have to learn all the things just like every other human child, but they also must discover, harness, and eventually master their extraordinary gifts.

At first Willy’s unusual strength caused him to break a lot of things. It all started with his older brother’s pristine Thomas the Tank Engine collection which Willy inherited. Aidan always took impeccable care of his toys. At a very early age, William became fascinated with Thomas and Friends careening off the table. It wasn’t long before William broke Thomas’s face. He handed me the hapless tank engine's head in three pieces, while saying,

“Fix please.”

His brother, who is eight years older, is our go to babysitter. Whenever my wife, Christine, and I enjoy a night out on the drive home we always wonder aloud what William might have destroyed. He tends to plow right through things rather than bothering to go around.

He broke two banisters on the handrail to the staircase while running in socks. He also cracked the glass on his iPad three times. That was kind of my fault. I didn’t know that superheros are supposed to get tempered glass on their mobile devices. He also managed to rip a seam in our newly reupholstered couch by sitting too forcefully. When young, superheroes tend to gravitate to high places like the backs of couches as such vantage points offer the best opportunity to scan the landscape for bad guys.

Recently, while getting toilet paper from the roll, William snapped off the spindle. It’s made of metal, but it broke like a twig. When we had William's grip strength measured by his pediatrician, he broke the tester. The other day after spending some “we time” at the gym, Christine and I returned to find that William accidentally tore the door to his room off the jam. We never got a straight answer how it happened because he is somewhat self conscious over his unusual strength, and we thought it might not be a good idea to upset him too much should he turn green and grow in size before going on an anger induced rampage. I’ve got an ever expanding list of things to fix, most of which will have to wait for winter to set in as fall outdoor cleanup absorbs most of my time.

The other day we got a note from his teacher. William was selected to participate as a “partner” for the Unified Sports Team, a national program coordinated by the Special Olympics. As a participant, William is to assist athletes in achieving their goals. His teacher said he was chosen due to his "leadership, positive attitude, and compassion for others in the school setting." He was very proud as was I, but I wasn't surprised.

Compassion is his other superpower, the one he's already mastered.

Editor's Note: Originally published on October 9, 2018. A few readers asked if William really pulled the door to his room off the jam. He did. We're a bit unsure how he managed to do it and suspect his older brother was involved, but neither is talking.

Recently William announced that as a fifth grader he would no longer smile for his school picture. He said that the time for seriousness is upon him. He must be thinking about the task before him, a life of fighting for truth, justice and equity but not the bad things historically associated with socialism.

I Don't Miss Work

I don’t at all. It’s not like I didn’t have good jobs. I worked as an engineer for a defense contractor right out of college, then later after earning a masters degree, I toiled away as a computer scientist for a small software company. Both these disciplines were lucrative and interesting, but they came with a few odd moments.

There are many aspects of work which I don’t miss like numb-nuts meetings, feigning interest in my boss’s leisure time activities, keeping my mouth shut while absorbing mindless company policies, noises emanating from my colleagues bodies including middle school level banter about current events. Some people have told me that they just love what they do and can’t see how I don't go to work every day. Here's why I don’t miss work.

Unwitting Bathroom Monitor

I used to sit in a cube farm just outside the men’s bathroom. From my vantage, I could hear colleagues dropping friends off at the pool. I bore witness to the sound of the flush, followed by the sink shortly thereafter. This last part was optional. About half the men I worked with did not wash their hands after pinching cocoa. These same people would reach into a box of donuts on Friday mornings to retrieve a favorite crumpet only to return it after determining it was not what they thought. I routinely passed over the donuts at work.

Spend a Penny Like a Wee Boy

I worked with a guy named “Ted,” who urinated while standing up with his pants and underwear down to his ankles. The first time I went into the men’s room and saw Ted’s big, rugged ass staring back at me, I thought that I would never be able to unsee that. Ted's butt was so large that his drawers would slingshot to the floor under tension when his belt was released. I suspected he was one of those guys on YouTube who while dancing at a wedding reception, spontaneously lost their pants. Others in the office noticed the same odd appearance of Ted’s flank steaks so my boss called a meeting. None of us knew why we were all in the conference room.

Boss: Does anyone know why I called this meeting?
Me: You’re leaving?
Boss: No.
Me: We’re leaving?
Boss: No, it’s come to my attention...

My boss went on about Ted’s bathroom reveal. Everyone at the table voiced their tragic encounter with Ted's ass. When it was my turn, I said,

"I think we should get HR involved."

"No, I think we can handle this at my level," my boss declared.

“So what are you saying, one of us should just tell him?” I asked.

With that he announced,

“Great idea! You do it.”

Everyone abruptly got up and scrambled for the door. My boss pushed through the minions to get out first. I was left sitting alone thinking that I had to tell Ted that his fundament was something his colleagues didn’t want to see with any measure of regularity, and he should get that boil lanced. Ted was clueless when I bridged the topic so I brought him in the loo and told him to use the urinal next to me. When his pants and briefs hit the floor I said,

“Now look at my pants then look at yours. See the difference?”

“I think so,” Ted answered, “Mine has pleats. My wife says pleats are out.”

“No, look where my pants are,” I insisted, “you know, relative to yours.”

Ted looked at my pants as I pretended to wiz in the upright, porcelain urinal, then he looked to his slacks at his feet, bunched up like a theatre curtain.

“Oh!” he exclaimed.

Ted thanked me since as he put it, no one had ever told him. Talk about discovering a loogie in the mirror at the end of the day. A month later, I was called into a meeting with the head of Human Resources and my boss. They were both frowning when I entered. As I sat down, the VP of HR said,

"It's come to my attention that you spoke to an employee about his use of the facilities."

I looked to my boss, waiting for him to explain that he instructed me to do so. Instead, he kept curling the corner of the paper in front of him as he frowned. Apparently, Ted filed for disabled status under the Americans with Disabilities Act. The HR robot admonished me for not involving management. My boss dropped his frown in favor of a look of pure guilt. When the Human Resources douchebag finished, I thought there would be no repercussion, then she told me,

"That's strike one for you."

Professional Phonies

Some people in computer science exaggerate their skill set. Once I was assigned an older woman who was newly hired as a senior software developer. I gave her tasks that a high schooler should have been able to complete in an afternoon. She never finished any of them. I chatted with her during the course of her day even though I was busy as fuck, being one of the few productive developers employed by this shithole of a company. I sat with her at a cookout as she pawed through her pictures of her grandkids. She never asked me about my family even though William, our youngest, was sitting next to me. The fact was that after three months she hadn't done anything to advance the project, but instead absorbed so much of my time that I was completing my tasks from home at night.

I met with my boss when I began to suspect that something was amiss. Frankly, this old biddy seemed senile to me. She barked at me some mornings then moments later was pleasant as can be to others. I think she suspected I was onto her overblown credentials. I told my boss,

"I don't have the skill set to deal with her."

He instructed me to "go back to my desk and try harder." When she up and quit, I was relieved until I learned that she blamed it all on my lack of skills and knowledge. She claimed our architecture was "all screwed up," and I personally didn't know what I was doing. All this went down without my boss or HR ever consulting with me. In retrospect, I learned a very valuable lesson.

If your input is not being sought out, then they're blaming you for everything.

That's why they don't want your opinion. Once the ole bag had me in the bag, she went for a double play by trying to implicate my boss as well. He was having no part of that. She lost credibility by trying to tarnish my boss who survived only by defending me. He was fine with throwing me under the bus, just as long as he got a window seat, but the minute it looked like he was going under the wheels too, he put a stop to all of it.

I learned later that she had a panic attack and froze up while filling out paperwork on her first day. Instead of human resources protecting employees from an overt nutjob, they reassured her that we "were all nice people to work with." Of course my boss covered his tracks about our meeting when I informed him that the one psychology course I took in college was inadequate training to deal with her level of dementia. The HR head sent me an email indicating,

"Strike Two for you."

Just another day in shithole corporate America.

Scheduled Morning Dumps


In my youth, I worked for a defense contractor that made submarines. As a salaried professional engineer, I was often baffled by the older unionized workforce. If you called one of them to ask a question at 7:29 am, they would always ask,

“Can you call back at 7:30?”

Then when you did call again at the rightful start of the day, they would be unavailable. I quickly learned that unionized workers hated the company. Many disappeared to the men’s room at the start of the day because they held in their morning constitution so they could shit on company time. Seemed unhealthy to me.

Sick Lottery

A defense contractor makes money by billing the government for the hours reported against a human sitting at a desk. It doesn’t matter what that human actually does as long as they’re breathing. The more humans, the more money the company makes even if most of them do nothing at all. The company, though, pays when an employee calls in sick. Normally, the government doesn't pony up for sick time. So this led management to implement a lottery system for cash and days off for all employees who didn't call in sick over the past year.

The first time this was implemented, I went to work at least once with some contagious ailment emanating from my body. My wife, Christine, worked there also so I encouraged her to go into work after she spent the previous night puking. When the day of the drawing arrived, I thought we were going to win for sure because we had two names in the hat. In fact, I believed we would clean up. As my departmental manager stood before an eager crowd rotating a drum then pulling names from the bin, I was sure I was going to win and win big. The last drawing came and went with no victory.

“What a rip off!” I blurted.

Suddenly, it was all clear to me as I sat in my seat as a sick lottery loser, the person next to me coughing up phlegm. The way to guarantee a win was to call in sick when one wasn’t actually ill; after all, why come in to work with the Nutella squirts just to win a days vacation when you could call in sick and spend the whole day at the beach.

I also accepted that I worked for a company that encouraged it’s employees to come into the office and infect their colleagues with the latest plague that was making the rounds. Each year on the day the sick lottery drawing was held, I called in sick. My wife, always the ethical role model, refused to participate in my lottery rebuke charade. She did stay home when she was legitimately ill, though, eliminating her chances of winning. I, on the other hand, won in my own way every year thereafter.

Trashercise

The leaders at the defensive contractor came up a plan to reduce the janitorial expenses by removing employee's trashcans. One bin was located centrally on each floor. Since what we did at the company didn’t really matter, they didn’t care if a salaried engineer had to walk twenty paces ten times a day to discard garbage. A colleague of mine tipped off Scott Adams of Dilbert fame resulting in this comic strip which appeared in print on September 12, 1995.

Teeth in Lieu of Brains

Once the head of Human Resources of the small software company I worked for came up with a policy, endorsed by the CEO, to ensure that all employees filled out their weekly timecard in a timely manner. At an all hands meeting, she announced,

“All employees who fail to complete their timecard by 5 pm on Friday will lose a days vacation.”

I had two whole weeks per year of “personal time” at this crap company, and a manager who declined vacation whenever anyone put in for it. Now, I was going to lose a day if I forgot to gin up my timecard at the end of the week. There was only a few employees who chronically forgot to fill out their time sheet. Instead of leaning on them, we all were impacted with a mindless rule like often done in middle school. My boss explained at the next meeting,

“We wanted to put some teeth into it so we decided to impact your vacation.”

Being a consummate dick my whole life, I said,

“You should have put some brains into it first.”

While this angered my boss, I knew that punitively removing something of monetary value from salaried workers often results in lawyers invoking provisions in the Fair Labors Standard Act of 1938. I also knew that when a company lumped sick time and vacation together as personal time employees didn’t have to ask to take time off. A short time later I left before the announcement of my third strike.

Today I work for minimum wage, that is, nothing per hour. Christine’s career took off making it less lucrative for me to stay employed as my paycheck looked like a banking error compared to her's. Worse yet, I was taxed at our combined income making my take home as a professional software developer less than a living wage.

So there you have it. Now you know why I have all this free time to pen such quality pieces about vomit, colonoscopies and celebs while turning down lucrative offers for advertisements. Recently, I was contacted by a website that said they would include my blog in their list of top humor blogs for a small fee. The outfit wanted me to pay even though they actively portrayed their site as an independent tabulation of the internet's funniest blogs. Their email read,

"For a modest fee, we'll list <insert blog name> as one of our top humor blog discoveries!"

I explained to them that I would've done it, but unfortunately I didn’t have any money.

Editor's Note: Originally posted on October 2, 2018.

Pot in Every Chicken

This summer the People's Republic of Connecticut became the 19th state to legalize recreational marijuana, leaving Rhode Island and New Hampshire as the lone New England hold outs. In the Granite State, pot is decriminalized up to 3/4 oz for medical use only. It's no wonder that grass remains illegal in New Hampshire since the state has the fourth largest English speaking legislative body in the world with 400 members. Imagine how difficult it is to win a majority with so many voices who drive trucks with at least one door a different color. Today, we are voting in my town on a referendum to decide if people will be allowed to get high on public property. You can't openly drink alcohol here, but after today we might be able to toke up in the borough while strolling by the antique shops, bookstores and bistros. I'm doubtful that my fellow citizens will be brave enough with their vote to tell their inner child that this is just not a good idea; after all, most of them eat danish for breakfast.

My sum total of drug usage began and ended on Halloween in 1980 when I was 16 years old. After egging the telephone booth outside the local 7-Eleven, Frank Lamb and I took off up the street. When far enough away, we stopped to catch our breaths. Frank lit a joint which he handed to me. I took one hit and gave it back. A few years later while applying to an officer program in the military, I was filling out forms in a recruiter's office. One question read,

"Have you ever smoked marijuana?"

Recalling my days as a hooligan, I checked "Yes."

After reviewing my input, the recruiter gave me another form then advised me to say that my pot smoking was only "experimental" at college parties. I explained that it was before college, and I wouldn't characterize it as experimental.

"How often did you get high?" he asked concernedly.

"Never," I answered.

"But you just said you smoked pot!" he insisted.

"Yeah, I took one hit off a joint that Frank Lamb handed me on Halloween in high school."

The recruiter grabbed my application and crumbled it up then placed a blank form in front of me while advising that I fill it out again except this time check "No" on the dope question.

The main reason I avoided drugs in my youth was because in the 70s I was too young for the free love, turn on, tune in, drop out counter-culture of the hippy generation. Truth be known, hippies on the east coast were not mellow, peace loving, bohemian, flower children who just liked to get high while listening to Jimmy Hendrix and Peter, Paul and Mary. They were mostly jerks who bullied younger kids like me for just being near them on a day when they ran out of doobage. The first lesson I learned about ganja as a kid was that while smoking pot makes you mellow, most burnouts get pretty ornery when they come down.

I had a longtime friend who unbeknownst to me smoked pot on a regular basis. When we got together for a cookout at either of our homes or dinner in town, he was so down to earth calm that I believed that's just the kind of person he was. Once when I spent a full day with him helping with a home repair, I noticed as the day wore on he became increasingly agitated. When we took a break for lunch at a local sandwich shop, he hassled the waitress so badly that I ordered something different from him just to ensure I didn't get the sandwich with the spit in it. As he left his half of the tip, he dropped four dollars into the pile of cash on the table while retrieving the five dollar bill I landed.

Exiting the sandwich shop, I suggested that we make another trip to the hardware store to exchange the plumbing fitting I recommended earlier that morning. Upon returning to his car, he launched into a profanity laced tirade that included an assessment of my home improvement skills which he deemed "not worth the ink on my grandfather's naturalization papers." As he drove to the hardware store which I believe he thought was Beyond Thunderdome, he tailgated vehicles while spewing a stream of consciousness in critique of their inferior driving abilities. At the hardware store, he was so dissatisfied with the service from the guy trying to help us that he freely associated descriptive terms with his most prominent physical features.

What I didn't know at the time was that the plumbing project he wanted help with was going to last longer than the buzz he put on before I arrived. He never lit up in front of me and had only recently admitted to smoking marijuana frequently, noting that I likely didn't approve. He was right. I don't approve of smoking weed. Not because it's bad for you, or because it's addictive. Not because chronic use will cause stomach ailments or throat cancer. No, I hate it because most people who habitually smoke pot are douchebags when they're not high, and they don't even know it.

There's a lot of myths spread on social media about Mary Jane that don't get censored by the independent fact-checkers as assuredly as comments claiming that the past summer was unusually cold. According to the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) and National Institute of Health (NIH) cannabis is addictive, but so many people refute this that they use the term "marijuana use disorder" instead. The younger you start toking up the more likely you are to develop a disorder. Cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome is a condition in which long-term regular marijuana use causes frequent and violent upchucking. The American Cancer Society is against smoking and vaping pot in public because the smoke contains numerous carcinogens. In 2017, the number of fatal car crashes in which the driver was high on hemp doubled in Washington state five years after legalization. A 2019 study published in JAMA Psychiatry determined that marijuana use among 12 to 17 years olds was 25% higher after legalization.

There are plenty of conflicting studies on the internet that indicate usage did not increase after legalization and tout the medical benefits of getting high. But if you look closely at the URLs for these sites, you'll see that they point to some stoner's blog or a site promoting bud. You can find many studies which conclude that pot is not a gateway drug, that smoking weed does not lead to the use of more potent drugs like cocaine. While it is true not everyone who smokes reefer will end up a heroin addict, it’s equally true that most, if not all, hardcore drug users started out with weed.

Recently, I took our ten year old, William, to a routine end of summer checkup. As the examination wrapped up, the doctor asked him if anyone he knows vapes marijuana. William thought a moment then answered, "No." I was perhaps naively surprised that she asked such a question until she informed me that vaping pot is on the rise in his age group because parents consider cannabis to be safe, even beneficial, now that it is legal in many states.

A passionate pothead colleague of mine once said that I didn't have a clue what I was talking about because I "don't smoke pot." He was right. I don't smoke pot, but I'm unsure as to why he thought regularly ingesting a mind altering drug would lend credence to his opinion. The exchange reminded me of comments made by author and columnist, Fran Lebowitz, in the Martin Scorsese's Netflix docu-series, Pretend It's a City. Lebowitz said,

"I do have friends who are around my age or even older who I know to have been daily marijuana smokers for 50 years. These are not the most acute people on the planet. Let me assure you that there is an aggregate effect. Because I knew them maybe when they started, OK? So they're not like, dangerous people, but maybe they're not the people you would consult anymore."

While you may no longer seek their advice and they may not be threatening, I’m pretty certain that many of them are also assholes.