Comic Relief: Marijuana Conversations at Work

While the mourners are walking around in their awkward funeral trance during visitations and funerals, my co-workers and I often find time to chat. I have chatted more with these middle-aged and older men and women than I probably have with many of my friends. I mean, 5 hours sitting together at the front desk during a visitation is both a blessing and a curse. It's agonizingly boring, sure. But at least it forces me to converse with people much different than myself, people from completely different generations and cultures. I have talked about pretty much everything people can talk about in general conversation, but perhaps the greatest conversations are the ones I have about marijuana.

I am a college student and I enjoy to smoke marijuana. I won't go into a rant here but I don't think it's a bad decision when compared to our culture's alcohol obsession and used in moderation. Anyway, I had talked about marijuana with most of them, even my grandfather during the election when Proposition 2 in Michigan was in the spotlight, but I had never admitted or given hints that I use it. This year I gave subtle hints that I smoked, only to open-minded co-workers and only after I guzzled at least 3 cups of coffee from the machine in the lounge.

I talked to one woman that I work with during visitations at night. She is a self-proclaimed "hippie" and we share anti-war and music interests. She once told me that her husband "used to buy pounds with his friends" and then claimed that he was not selling it, except to friends who would buy "nickel bags" ($5 worth). A pound of marijuana is 16 ounces, 448 grams and about 896 joints, they were either successful drug dealers or the only weed addicts in history. She also told stories about going to concerts and hitting loose joints passing around the crowd, and how if you did that today you would catch a venereal disease.

Today I was parking cars with the owner of the local funeral car service and he told me that he had terrible glaucoma. Now medical marijuana may be a hoax, but glaucoma is honestly one of the only diseases that are legitimate in that sense. I was going to suggest it to him, but he ended up telling me that he had gotten a referral yesterday. He seemed indifferent about it and said, "I like the idea except I don't want to be driving a hearse around with a buzz on". We then talked about exorbitant dispensary prices and how regs are the way to go.

We went inside and he started a conversation with one of the DIRECTORS about the glaucoma and the medical marijuana. I know she used to be a pothead, I've heard her talk about it comfortably before in front of my uncle (the boss). Anyway, he told her the same thing about driving a hearse around while high, and she said "Well you can always get cookies or lollipops". Anyone who is aware of weed lollipops is a certified stoner.

It's fun to talk to past generations about pot. It helps me realize that my group of friends are not the first stoners, and it gives a new perspective. At least 3 different older co-workers have said something about the high potency of weed in our generation, and while they say it with a negative connotation, it actually makes me proud that my generation is so great at growing weed and that we have to consume less burning plant matter than they did to get a buzz.