Hans the Weed Snob

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Although I have become more selective about the weed I smoke, I have actively avoided becoming a weed snob. We’ve all met that person who takes all the fun out of a sesh by turning it into a platform for his one-upsmanship. Nobody likes this guy, but deep down we want him to acknowledge that we're real heads. My first friend of this sort was a fat dude with dreads. Let’s call him Hans. My freshmen year of college, Hans was my freshmen dorm’s weed kingpin. I was lucky enough to live on the same floor as him. When Hans wasn’t in class, he spent his time barricaded in his room behind a door padded with fabreezed towels, where he blew weed smoke out the window through a system of fans commonly known as the vortex. We all had vortexes in our room, but Hans’s fan system was the best—as was his weed, his pipes, and everything else about his weed operation. He chose his friends by inviting them into his chambers to smoke. The first two weeks of school was an open enrollment period to get on his good side. The first day I waltzed into his room to say hi like a good new neighbor, I was unaware of Hans’s rules, and my presence irked him. However, as I identified the album release posters on Hans's wall and spoke to him about our common taste in music, Hans warmed up to me. I knew right away we would be best friends. What I didn’t know was that the good times would be fleeting.

The next time I stopped by Hans’s room, I brought a bunch of CDs to trade. He ended up giving me more stuff than I had brought for him, but every time he handed me a new disc, he scorned my musical knowledge. “Seriously, you haven’t heard of XYZ?” he would say. “Well, you should probably hear it. I can’t believe you don’t know it.” I was alright with him lecturing me about weed—he clearly had better game when it came to pot—but his comments about my music taste were seriously off-putting. Nevertheless, he balanced his snottiness with his desire to enlighten me, so I continued chilling with him, swapping CDs and smoking his awesome weed out of his awesome glass. Some of my better friends on the floor were gradually befriending Hans as well, and a few weeks into the school year, Hans started to seem like a part of our crew—at least until he started choosing some of us as his enemies.

First, Hans put Bol on his shit list. One day, as we stood in the hallway outside Hans’s room, Bol hocked a loogie on the floor. This was a pretty uncouth thing to do, but considering we lived on a floor filled with dudes who lived like animals, spitting on the ground wasn’t unforgivable—afterall, we were so messy, the custodial staff eventually refused to deal with us and skipped our floor for the remainder of the semester, basically turning our dorm into that movie Blindness. But Hans ignored this context. The second Bol spit, Hans became very quiet. The crew didn’t take notice of this since Hans was always snobby, but the next day Hans turned Bol away from his room when he stopped by for a sesh. Our sympathy for Bol wasn’t enough to stop us from smoking with Hans, so we filed past Bol and into Hans’s room. None of us realized that open enrollment was over, and the shit list would only get longer.

As Hans’s circle of trust grew smaller, I assumed I was safe, but I managed to screw up our friendship. My first offence happened one day when I was in the courtyard. I called Hans when he was in his room and asked him if he had any weed to sell. Hans hung up, came out of his room, found me in the courtyard, and told me I was “retarded.” Although it was a pretty stupid idea to call Hans when I could have simply gone to his room, I protested his harshness, which pissed him off even more. After I apologized, Hans forgave me, but his forgiveness didn’t matter—I had already embarked on a downward spiral.

My second offense started as an opportunity to win Hans back. There was a weed dry spell going on, and even Hans was affected. We were all getting desperate, and I resorted to a contact I had gotten at a super sketchy North Philly bar that didn’t card minors. I mentioned to Hans that I was going to pick up weed, and he gave me $50 to grab him some as well. My buddy Marv was interested too, so he joined me for the walk. We met my contact at an insanely shady corner several blocks off campus. If my memory serves me correctly—which it often doesn’t—my source went by the name Shred. As we walk up, Shred sat on a bike he had probably stolen from a child and clicked away on a burner phone. After we introduced ourselves, Shred presented us with a quarter ounce of what appeared to be moldy chocolate shavings. Neither Marv nor I had ever seen shittier weed. When Shred pressed Marv for a sale, Marv sternly refused. Shred stared at me. As he asked me if I had the money on me, I noticed Shred had definitely been stabbed in the face at some point in his life. He began to grow agitated. He aggressively complained that he had to walk about ten blocks to meet us, and we ignored the urge to point out that he was clearly sitting on a bike. Panicked, I traded Hans's $50 for shitty weed.

When we returned to the dorm, we found Hans waiting for us. He examined the weed I bought him—he looked like he was about to throw up on me. Instead of exiling me, Hans made me watch him pick through the seeds and stems for a few scraps of actual weed, roll a blunt, and then smoke glorified garbage with him.

I tried to tell him that I knew the weed was shit, and I had bought the weed because Shred scared me, but Hans remained silent throughout the sesh. The massive headache that blunt gave me was the last thing I ever got from Hans, and he hated my guts from then on. I was officially unwelcome in his presence, and his loathing persisted no matter how many times I tried to redeem myself. Even years later, when he lived with my friend Sour Joe, Hans shot me down, reminding me that I would never be a head like him. And frankly, he’s right. By now, I might have the chops to compete with him, but if the game is to out-cool other stoners' weed knowledge, I’d rather not play the game.

@ImYourKid

Previously - I Ruined a Tinder Date with Pot Cookies