4 Min Read

When you’re down on your luck, a helping hand should sound great.

But when your pal’s a dipshit, you have to worry about what you just ate…

“Would you like a cookie or two before you go, my hard-working amigo?”

Phil–not his real name, but not not his real name–proffered me a pair of mealy-looking cookies.

“Sure, why not? I did break a bit of a cold sweat this afternoon, and I sure do love me an…um…oatmeal, maybe?…cookie or two on occasion,” I said, graciously accepting.

Ol’ Phillip K. Ballz (or PKB, as I like to call him in these parts) and I had been good buddies back in high school, but for the most part had lived our own separate college lives–despite going to the same prestigious land-grant university. At this particular point in time, I had just graduated a month or so earlier (sorta), and was in the middle of “finding my way as an adult”. And by “finding my way as an adult,” I mean that I had no idea what kind of career I wanted to pursue, and was in the middle of job hunting just so I could pay my rent and put food in my mouth.

So when we randomly ran into each other and he discovered that I was hard-up for cash, he mentioned that his roommate and landlord, John–a guy I remembered from my freshman year as that one slightly strange hippie dude in the dorm that always wore a train engineer’s hat–was doing some landscaping in their backyard, and would be more than happy to pay me $70 for an afternoon of labor.

Of course I jumped on that meal wagon gravy train in an instant. I mean, what a deal: I would be getting exercise, some late-January sunshine, a wad of cash worth at least 5 weeks of groceries, and–best of all–get to hang out and reconnect with one of my oldest, most trustworthy pals. It was a win-win-win-win situation all around!

And now, after our hard day’s work, he was throwing in some bonus cookies?!? Heck, yes, this day couldn’t get much better!

As I started to chow down, it dawned on me that the baked goods weren’t oatmeal as I had previously surmised.

“Mmmm, say, Phil, what kind of cookies are these?” I said in between bites. “They’re not bad, per se, they just have an interesting texture I just can’t quite place. Somewhere on the spectrum between coconut and papier-mâché, if I had to guess…”

“Oh, those are John’s creation–and they’re full of exactly what you would expect a groovy dude like him to put in there.”

“So…dirt? Leaves? Is this nature-lovin’ mother ----- just collecting random items on the forest floor and throwing it in the oven or what?” I fancied a guess, knowing that it was slightly ridiculous–but that theory couldn’t quite be automatically ruled out, either.

“Nah, man, nothing like that, though he likes to sticky with ingredients on the more ‘natural’ side. You know, honey…seeds…nuts…plant fibers. Granola shit like that.”

“Oh. Ok. Yeah, I guess that tracks. And that is good enough for me. ‘Don’t look a gift house in the mouth’ and what-not, right?”

“Yup,” PKB agreed and then sat and watched intently as I polished off the second cookie along with two more that seemed to magically appear on my plate. “Now, where we? Let’s get back to regaling John and the others with the tales of our shenanigans from our youth…”

“You notice anything different?” PKB asked after getting lost in nostalgia for at least a good 45 minutes.

The question kind of came out of nowhere and caught me by surprise a little bit.

“Ummm…can’t say I really do. Anything different about what, exactly?” I replied, lightly confused.

A slight squeal came out of his lips–which I found rather quite odd–before clarifying.

“Like, do you feel any different, man?”

“Well, I am kinda full for once. You didn’t really have to offer me those 3 extra cookies–though I do immensely appreciate the generosity of you and John,” I said, taking care to express gratitude to my hosts for the 7 cookies had consumed in my state of hunger.

“No, not your stomach–does your head feel any different?” he queried with a cryptic grin.

“Alright, dude, what is up? You’re acting a little suspicious,” I said, cocking an eyebrow.

“They…*snort*…were,” he blurted out in between school-girl-like giggles, “POT COOKIES!”

He then bust out in a full-on fit of laughter after making his big reveal.

“WHAT?!?” I was slightly shocked. “So that’s why they felt like muddy straw in my mouth and had that odd after taste.”

“Ha, hah! I got you high-igh! I got you high-igh!” PKB reveled in having pulled a fast one on me.

“NO. Not funny. Bad friend. Bad friend!” I chastised my favorite dipshit.

“C’mon, you needed to relax and take your mind off of being broke. I’m doing you a favor.”
“Yeah, except that I’m in the middle of job-hunting. And now, if I finally land a job, what am I going to do if they make me take a drug test, huh? DAMMIT, you idiot. I can’t tell them ‘so sorry, but my so-called friend loaded me up on marijuana cookies and was too ----- naive to catch on in time. Please let me have this job anyways.’ Jeez, you’ve really screwed me over on this one, you fricking moron!”

Saying that I was displeased with his little stunt would be a gross understatement.

“Nah, man, you’ll be fine. Plus, there’s nothing you can do about it now anyways, so you might as well sit back and enjoy it.”

I sighed a sigh of resignation. He was right–at least about the fact that I couldn’t ‘un-high’ myself at this point–so I should soak in the time we had together.

“Ok, fine, whatever. But I can only stick around for another 15 minutes or so, and then I’m off to–oh for fuck’s sake, that’s where I have to go tonight?”

“What? What’s tonight?”

“You jackass, you better hope that I don’t say any incredibly stupid shit at Bible study…”

Content created on: 23/25 May 2024 (Thurs/Sat)