No, this column has nothing to do with something you cook with in the kitchen like a pot or a pan. This column has to do with a drug, a controlled substance (whatever that is). The title I chose is “pot” because it is considerably easier to spell than marijuana, and I don’t always have confidence in my spell checker.
Every time I hear the word “marijuana,” it reminds me of the time back in the 1950’s when a young Japanese girl entered the secondary boarding school I attended in Bucks County, Pennsylvania. Her name was Midori Marayama. She dressed in the traditional Japanese garb and looked like a beautiful fragile doll. Our headmaster mistakenly introduced her to the school as Midori Marijuana.
I never smoked weed when I was in college unlike many of my classmates. I never thought of myself as a nerd, and still don’t, but being a cautious soul, I was not big on experimenting.
When I was mayor, a friend left some pot on my desk which I promptly threw down the incinerator of my apartment building. At my bachelor’s party, perhaps the most boring event in the history of male gatherings, another friend brought some pot which I placed with the fire hose in the hallway of the local Holiday Inn. I had many political enemies who wanted me to break the law, and I had no intention of obliging them.
After my political career ended and before I had children, I smoked on a few occasions. Smoking had one memorable side effect. The last time I smoked many decades ago, I literally ate an entire box of Oreo cookies. I don’t recall whether the cookies had extra vanilla filling, but I do remember enjoying every single cookie.
I digress a moment to mention that the young Girl Scout who opened up a cookie stand in Colorado outside a pot dispensary is a genius, and if she ever starts a business, she can count on me to help fund it.
I bring up this whole subject because in this time of the pandemic, many of us who can’t escape by travel are looking for other ways to ride out the storm. As I mentioned in a recent column, the sales of alcohol and prozac are skyrocketing. And so I actually gave some thought recently to smoking a little pot. Then I looked at my belly, thought about that box of Oreos, and decided I would continue doing what I have been doing each and every night-eating a dollop of ice cream and a small handful of Peanut M&M’s (occasionally more than a dollop and always more than a small handful) and watching a whole lot of Netflix. This might not be the healthiest escape, but it sure beats eating a whole box of Oreos.