This is not a made-up story.  This is a cautionary tale.

Recently I blocked out an hour of my day to meet with a contractor to go over some projects at the house.   We weren’t reinventing the wheel.  Just some landscaping and minor electrical repairs.   Three hours later….no sh*t…… a SOLID three hours later…… I had heard the minutia of every project he had ever completed,  the trip he had taken to Australia, the inner workings of the Finlandian government, weather patterns of Northern California, sleeping habits of the tree rat, and how to trap a gopher.  I don’t actually know if Finlandian is a real word, so, whatever.  This story is bigger than my vocabulary.   An hour and a half into it I was trying every trick in the book of  “You’re Sucking the Life Out of Me and I Need You to Leave”  but he was having none of it.  30 minutes later I envisioned poking him in the eyeballs and throwing him off the deck.  And another 30 minutes later I was thinking about throwing myself off the deck but not poking my eyeballs.

When even prayer failed to shut him up, I tried my damndest to coax myself into a coma but rolling my eyes back in my head just made me dizzy and gave me a headache.  And still he kept on.   “Wacka Wacka Wacka!  Derka Derka Derka!”   But then I thought I heard him say “marijuana” and my ears perked up.   He just didn’t look like a dude you’d expect to see hanging out at the local cannabis clinic wearing a neck brace and pretending to be blind so he could get some free hash brownies.   Besides, have you ever known a pot head who could talk for 3 hours straight without taking a breath or needing a Dorito?

I knew it was an idiotic risk, but I had to ask him to repeat the story.  And the abbreviated version goes like this.   His 88-year-old mom, Pearl,  has been taking medical marijuana 2-3 times a day as suggested by her doctor.  She’s doing so much better.  Her symptoms have eased and she’s gaining some much-needed weight.  No freakin kidding.  She’s an 88-year-old catching a buzz 3 times a day.  She’s too stoned to know she has symptoms and with a perpetual case of The Munchies, likely to eat the leg off the cat if Taco Bell is closed.

Look, I really don’t know much about the healing benefits of marijuana.  If it would cure my hot flashes, mood swings, cellulite and indigestion I might cocoon myself at home and gorge on loaded chocolate chip cookies.  But one thing I know with 100% certainty is that an 88-year-old woman smoking weed is a monumentally bad idea.  And this is how I know that:

It seems that Pearl really was feeling better.  She was definitely eating and she was up and about enjoying a more active life around the house.  Only one small hiccup.   Pearl forgot that she needed a walker to get around.  Today she’s still getting baked daily while she recovers from a broken hip that, on most days, is a complete mystery to her. God help us all if she finds the keys to the Rascal 388-S.