Pot Luck

When I was 12, I lived in Lake Villa with my Aunt and my best friend, Rick, lived in Johnsburg. Rick was the son of my Aunt's best friend, so whenever my Aunt and his Mom would get together, Rick and I would hang out. Rick was a great guy and whenever I hung out with him I'd always do all kinds of amazing things that I'd never get to do with my friends back home. Like one weekend I'd take up smoking cigarettes, the next weekend we'd throw rocks at oncoming traffic and on my next visit we'd dress up like women and go out on the town. Luckily, that last adventure was on Halloween.

One warm summer day, my Aunt dropped me off at Rick's house to visit and she planned to pick me up later that evening. When I went inside, Rick's parents were both at work and there were three other guys hanging around. Right away, Rick tells me, "Hey, if I show you something, you gotta promise to keep your mouth shut about it." Of course I said yeah, so he takes me to the kitchen and opens up the oven. They had taken all but the bottom rack out and there, piled all the way to the top, was a gigantic mound of pot. Well, I didn't know it was pot at first, I just said, "What the hell are you guys cooking?".

"It's the weed I told you about", Rick said. Last time I was over, Rick had gone on an on about a friend of a friend of a friend who had cut through a local cornfield a couple weeks earlier and managed to stumble upon an acre or so of mary jane planted smack in the middle. He had asked me to come along, as he and some other guys had plans to sneak out of their houses in the middle of the night and check it out for themselves. I had said I was busy and ditched on the plans because frankly I thought the whole story reeked of urban legend, and Rick always loved that crap.

Well, Rick and a few buddies had gone out there and actually found the spot and managed to get away with some weed. Now they needed to dry out as much as they could before his parents came home. Truth be told, at 12, my knowledge of the "curing" and preparation of marijuana was minimal, but we all acted like we knew what we were doing. Sure, everyone knows it needs to be dried, then you have get the buds off the stems and get the seeds out. We all grew up watching Cheech & Chong, didn't we?

Rick then tells me, "You've gotta take some of this pot off my hands though. If my parents find it, they'll kill me." I didn't see the big deal, "If you four guys split it up once it's dry, it'll probably only be like a couple ziplock bags each". "Oh yeah, the stuff in the oven will be no problem..." he says, "but come here". Rick then leads me out to the shed in the back yard and opens the door. Once my eyes adjust to the darkness, I see that there are 6 or 8 black garbage bags piled in the corner. "holy crap!"I couldn't believe it, "yeah" is all he could say. I told Rick I'd have to pass. My Aunt was picking me up a little later, and hiding a quarter ounce would be one thing, but I was pretty sure she'd notice if I threw a garbage bag of weed into the trunk.

In the end, I'm not sure what ever became of the bags of weed. At 12, I didn't have any interest in pot yet. If I had it today, though, I'm pretty sure I could retire.