The Weed Brownie Story

My main problem with cocaine is this: if you’re not in Columbia, you’re probably snorting something that got to you via some poor girl’s breast implants. Or rectum. That’s quite a sobering thought. That exact powder, that’s promising to free your mind, and open you up to increased levels of high definition living, probably spent some time making it’s way through a stranger’s gastrointestinal track, and then some more time, covered in their fecal matter. That’s not exactly the thoughts I want floating around my head, when all my thoughts are being magnified in color.

And if my previous drug experiences are any indication of my mind’s reaction to illegal stimuli, I’m pretty sure it would be a very unhappy trip. (Look at me and my previous drug experiences. So edgy!) So as much as I enjoyed that “GIRLS” episode where Hannah and Elijah snorted a ton of cocaine and danced their asses off, I do not think I will be attempting to try that IRL…

So without further ado, I give to you, Amanda Hanna’s horrific Weed Brownie Story:

One weekend, long, long ago, Matt and I went down to Port Antonio for a wedding. On a holiday weekend. It is important to note this because on usual weekends there is nothing to do in Port Antonio, much less a holiday weekend. I’m pretty sure KFC was the only place open for food, and at the time, I was vegetarian. It is also important to note that the weather was overcast the entire time we were there, and the little time I spent in the pool, I was freezing.

We were staying at Goblin Hill, best known by me for my Dad’s friends rat story, which goes like this. When my dad’s friend was sleeping one night, at Goblin Hill, a rat, who was scampering way above from one wooden beam to the other, missed a step and landed plum on my dad’s friends chest. He opened his eyes, and was face to face with the highly confused, jumbo rat. (We are talking Splinter from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. And yes, I may be a fan of Splinter, but jeez, who wants Splinter to smack right onto their chest when they’re sleeping?) As you can imagine, moments later, my dad’s friend had packed his bags and abandoned his vacation, in the dead of night. That was years ago, however, and I didn’t see any rats during our stay, but still, I was never at ease. Anyhow, (back to the story), other wedding guests were staying at the same place, and at some point one of them declared, in utter, end-of-her-rope-boredom, that she was making weed brownies.

Now I should say this. I hate weed. It smells awful. Believe me. I have to breathe that shiz in every Monday night at work, and frankly, I don’t know how anyone can say it wards off nausea.

Anyhow, like I said, there wasn’t much going on in Port Antonio that weekend, so I hung around, chatting with various people as the girl made her brownies, thinking all the while, “well, I would never be interested to try those!”

That is….until they were in the oven. It’s amazing how a day and a half of eating only bun and cheese, can enhance the smell of brownies in the oven. The aroma was simply Heavenly. Still, I remained steady. “There’s weed in those brownies,” I told myself. “I will not eat weed!”

So the brownies came out of the oven, and I opened another beer. No problem. “If I can give up steak, by God, I can resist brownies! A thing I don’t eat that often, anyway!) My stomach grumbled, so I threw beer on it. (Beer has always been a fantastic food replacement for me). “I am stronger than my stomach!”

Half an hour or so later, the girl cracked open a tin of chocolate frosting. (Chocolate. Frosting.) She began to lather the brownies with the gooey, richness that could melt the coldest of hearts. More people started piling into the hotel room, and the brownies soon hit the center of the group, their scent engulfing us all. To my left, to my right, warm, aromatic brownies, smeared with the kind of goodness that I will sometimes eat with plain graham crackers, surrounded me. My heart began to race. My stomach stepped up a notch with the growling. My hands began to feel clammy. My throat felt tight. I had to have a brownie! I HAD TO HAVE A BROWNIE!

Luckily for me, my friend who will remain nameless, agreed to share one with me. “I hope I don’t die,” I told Matthew (who refused to share anything with me!), as the chocolate goodness melted on my tongue. This is no lie: it was the BEST tasting brownie I’ve ever had. Again, I was basically starving all weekend. (And as much credit as I give beer, it’s not exactly bread).

I waited ten minutes, nervously, and to my surprise, I didn’t feel anything…

Half an hour passed, and I felt a little tipsy, but remember, I had been drinking beer on a basically empty stomach, so I figured this was pretty much normal.

An hour later when I was fine, I thought, “I guess I’m okay! Half a weed brownie probably isn’t strong enough to cause any real damage.” That’s when I began to marvel at my tolerance. “Look at me,” I thought, “I have a stomach of steel!” People around me started to act goofy and look funny, but not me. I was probably immune to it on the count of me breathing so much in at work. That was it! I had a tolerance without even knowing it. Half a weed brownie was no match for me!

One of the girls in the room asked Matt if he’d give her a ride to her nearby hotel, so I bounced along for the ride, all the way up the hill. The roads in Port Anotnio are dark, and poorly lit (if lit at all). There’s lots of greenery and the sound of the ocean somewhere in the unseen distance. It’s pretty spooky under normal situations, but with half a weed brownie, it began to take on a sinister undertone. I fought the feeling of dread all the way up the hill, but something changed on the way down. We were going so fast, and the trees outside began to woosh by, hitting on the car, and casting awful shadows over me. The moon looked bigger than normal, and the overall stillness of the night sent a shiver down my spine. I became terrified! Suddenly, I looked at Matt and thought he wasn’t really Matt. Like someone else had taken over Matt’s body and was trying to drive us off the hill. I tried to stay clam, telling myself it was the brownie, it wasn’t real, but I couldn’t control my mind. What if it wasn’t the brownie? What if this was my life, and my boyfriend was trying to kill me? What if this was really happening and I was just blaming it on the brownie? Not wanting to alert him to my knowing what he was up to, I began talking to him in my most rational tone of voice. I believe the conversation went something like this:

Me: Matthew, are you really Matthew?

Matt: What are you talking about?

Me (Getting suspicious about why he’s avoiding my question): ARE YOU MATTHEW? YES OR NO?

Matt: Hello, crazy, why are you yelling at me?

Me: So you are saying you are NOT Matthew?

Matt: You’re insane.

Me: WHY ARE YOU AVOIDING MY QUESTIONS? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?

I believe it is at this point that I became really convinced that he was no longer my boyfriend, and definitely a demon pod-person, come to drive me straight to hell for eating half a weed brownie, and like three beers, on an empty stomach. So naturally, I grabbed the wheel of the car and tried to drive us off the road. Naturally. 

Matt: What are you doing, you crazy, f*cking, B*tch?????? Are you trying to kill us?

Suddenly, at that exact moment, I lost my ability to speak. Everything Matt said, echoed in my mind, and my hand in the dark became this incredible morphing limb. I could hear Matt yelling, but I couldn’t really process what he was saying. My hand was mind-blowing. I couldn’t take my eyes off of it. At some point later, Matt was out of the car and I saw we were back at Goblin Hill.

Matt: Are you coming, weed fairy? (He is so witty when I’m not in the mood!)

As we walked down the extremely creepy pathway in the pitch blackness, him storming ahead, me slowly behind, I started hearing voices. I couldn’t figure out if they were real or if they were imaginary, so I kept asking Matt every three seconds if he said something to me?

Me: Did you just say something?

Matt: No?

Me: Did you just say no?

Matt: Yes.

Me: So yes or no?

Matt: ignoring me.

Me: Are you talking to me? Who is talking to me? What is going onnnnnn????

What seemed like an eternity later, we got to the room. I was in an orange alert state of panic. (Do you know what that’s like for a New Yorker? I’ve felt less panicked on aircrafts flying through snow storms!) Who was talking to me? Was I dead? Was I a ghost? Was Matt himself or a demon pod-person? Nothing seemed real, anymore. Nothing made sense. I wished to God I had had the strength to resist the brownie, the self-discipline to just say no. But come on–I was supposed to ‘just say no’ to weed, not brownies! If I had that kind of will-power I’d had lost ten pounds by now!

I got into bed, laying on my back, looking up at the wooden beam above my head, and began to weep. And WAIL! Weep and wail like no person has ever wept and wailed before. Matt was pretty much done with me at this point, but he couldn’t sleep through my sobbing. Finally he turned around and asked me what the hell was the matter.

I don’t know what came over me, but the only thing I could come up with was this:

“I can’t take a rat falling on my chest right now. I HAVE BEEN THROUGH TOO F*CKING MUCH TONIGHT!”

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