Blazed-Out Moms

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I love hanging out with my mom. She is pretty much the only non-blazing person I can spend long amounts of time with and still enjoy our conversations. Although my mom never smokes weed, she can relate to my obsession with pot because she experiences a similar fascination with alcohol. Unlike many moms, she discovered alcohol later in life. When I was a kid, I accepted that none of my family members drank alcohol. It never felt like prohibition; it was simply our way of life. Since my family lacked any means to become intoxicated, my mom, aunt, and uncles drank copious amounts of tea and occasionally smoked cigarettes when they wanted to get really wild. With the exception of these restrictions, we lived normal American lives. Predictably, it was only a matter of time before the moms began taking after their kids and asked, “Why are we not getting fucked up?”

Partially, our moms stayed sober because of our dads, who remained dedicated to abstinence from alcohol and drugs despite their obsession with football and Pink Floyd. But as they should be in any household, the men were powerless from stopping the women from partying—eventually, bottles of wine were on the table for every family gathering. My brother brought his homebrewed beer for the moms to sample, and on birthdays, my aunt broke out a bottle of high-end tequila. The dads sat on the sidelines, incredulous as their wives, sisters, and children got wasted and slurred their native language.

It was in this age of adventure that I ruined weed for my aunt. One night, while my cousin and I smoked a joint, she joined us. Smoking weed like it was 1975 took its toll on her, and after a nightmarish Thanksgiving Eve, she swore she would never smoke again. I knew she was lying, and a couple of weeks ago, my suspicion proved right—this time she loved weed, but that didn’t spare us from another awkward situation.

I was crashing at my mom’s house while my aunt and her friend (let’s call her Lulu) were visiting her. When I realized we had drank half our wine supply, I broke out my travel jar of weed and started rolling a joint. My aunt was eyeing the operation, and I could tell she was debating whether or not she would give weed another whirl. My mom, who had bailed my aunt out of her last stoned ordeal, saw her inclination and immediately said, “Nope.” This made my aunt want to smoke more. “I just had too much last time. This time he’ll make sure I don’t go overboard, right, Kid?” I looked up knowing that I would lose this debate no matter what I said. After I finally agreed to let my aunt join me, my mom said, “I’m coming too.” Lulu had been drinking heavily, so she decided to sit the sesh out.

In the garage, surrounded by crates of my old records, I smoked out my mom and my aunt. I limited them to two hits apiece and sternly admonished them as they watched me puff away the lion’s share of the joint. When we stepped back inside, my aunt was already giggling. My mom was grumbling that it wasn’t working for her, although she was rushing to the kitchen to attack a box of individually wrapped chocolates. My aunt sat down and started jovially chatting with Lulu, but it soon became clear that the wine, coupled with momentary solitude, had taken Lulu to a dark place—she suddenly turned the conversation to her brother’s murder.

Freshly stoned myself, I listened with intrigue as she told the tragic story. Her brother was an artist in his early 20s who was robbed and killed by a gang of thugs after an unsavory night at a bar. Partway through the tale, Lulu began to shed tears—this was a clear cue for my aunt to begin consoling her friend, but when I looked over at my aunt, it was clear that her mind was somewhere else. Suddenly, my aunt burst out laughing and then quickly quieted herself. She looked over at Lulu and made eye contact. There was a momentary silence before my aunt burst out laughing once again, incoherently trying to tell us what had her so tickled. With her mouth full of chocolate, my mom said, “Lulu, that’s so terrible. I’m just glad they brought those bastards to justice.”

Lulu’s expression became even more somber. She said, “That’s the thing. They never caught him, but I know who did it, and years later he came back and murdered my father.” My jaw dropped, my mom stopped chewing her chocolate, and my aunt failed to stifle a high-pitched laugh that sprayed out of her like a geyser. To my amazement, neither my mom nor my aunt attempted any damage control. Turning to an old standby, my mom said, “Who wants tea?” and began boiling water. My aunt lay on her back and started bending her right leg up and down, as she said, “Wow! My knee was hurting, and now it totally doesn’t anymore. Kid, do you think it’s because of medical marijuana? Go figure, it really works!” I tried to think of something I could say to transition us a little more smoothly from unsolved homicides to the merits of cannabis for joint pain, but I came up with nothing. Amazingly, Lulu looked unfazed by my aunt’s laughing fits and turned her focus on a freshly filled glass of wine.

Thus far, every blazing experience with my aunt has yielded a weird situation, but the weirdness factor seems to be diminishing. We’ve figured out her appropriate dosage, and next time, I’ll make sure I have a movie or something to distract my aunt from making any faux pas. Watching my aunt rediscover weed, I can’t help but feel some envy for how absolutely fucked up she gets from a couple hits. For me, blazing is a part of daily life, and being high no longer puts me in a state of complete detachment from reality. Soon enough, my aunt will gain a tolerance for weed, and her innocence will be gone, but in the meantime, I’ll enjoy her novice antics at every given opportunity.

@ImYourKid