POT TASTER SPOILED BY MARTINIS

I went down to our local pot shop the other day and scored some grass.
That is by way of saying I purchased some medical marijuana to help in
our daughter's fight against the nausea of cancer. And it's working.
But I had to try it first to make sure it was safe. I considered it a
father's duty.

I chose the chocolate chip cookie. You don't just bring home raw
cannabis anymore. In the new age of legalized useage one can purchase
the dope in cookies and candy or use its buds for tea.

Before I could get started, my wife, the wise Cinelli, questioned my
intent.

"I don't like this," she said. "It's just an excuse for you to get
high. You have an addictive personality. That's why you eat so much
pasta."

She fears I will have a cookie today, and then two cookies tomorrow
and more thereafter, spending every evening in a cookie buzz.

I took the first bite at 4:17 p.m. It wasn't the best chocolate chip
cookie I ever had; sort of a woodsy taste. I ate a fifth of the
cookie. No effect.

In between I played computer solitaire instead of just sitting there
chewing and took notes on what I was doing. As I ate I noticed my
handwriting getting sloppy. In the fourth grade, the teacher demanded
flawless penmanship.

"Loops and lines, loops and line," she'd say, walking around the room
beating a rhythm with a pencil in her open palm. My loops and lines
were going to hell.

4:42 p.m. Bite No. 2. A cookie will never replace a martini. The boys
will not gather to have a cookie together, I don't care how much stuff
you put into it. You can't clink cookies. I'm getting a little fuzzier
here with half the cookie gone.

Meanwhile, the queen of hearts on my screen almost seems to be saying
something. Since she is only a computer image, that's not possible. I
think I am feeling the effects of the cannabis. What's a card got to
say anyhow?

5:01 p.m. Bite No. 3. I feel like giggling, I don't know why. I have
just lost at solitaire and I am grinning about it. I never grin. And
I'll be damned if I'll giggle. This is becoming more recreational than
scientificalcq.

Cookie bite No. 4. It's a fairly good size cokiecq, I mean cookie, and
it's almost gone. Now I can't read my handwriting at all. And I don't
care.

5:17 p.m. The final bite. My grandson Travis calls. He says my speech
is garbled.

"I can't believe my grandpa is sitting there getting stoned," he says.
I try to stand but I'm unsteady. I make it to the living room and
attempt to watch television but someone has moved the furniture around
and sprinkled it with a brightening agent.

"It's the dope," my wife says. "You're hallucinating."

I'm off the cannabis cookies for good, but small bites are helping my
daughter's appetite and controlling the nausea. That's good enough for
me. Tonight it's back to martinis. I've missed the olive.