Panacea

I would have, under normal circumstances, just ordered it online and have it delivered. Although this feels more critical somehow. And so I take it upon myself to drive ‘over the mountain’.

Our Apple tv broke. Its a first generation and its been a faithful and hardworking companion since before my (now) six year old was even born. I don’t really begrudge its passing, I am enough of a Apple-Deist to know (and accept) that Apple products work really well… until they don’t… and then you end up replacing it with something that has (apparently) several generations of advancement, but largely feels like exactly the same thing (except more expensive).

In any event, the Apple-tv is a cornerstone of both our parenting techniques and our sanity saving mechanism. It needs to be replaced in a time-sensitive manner.

You know you could just buy an android device for… a third of the price (and arguably have a comparable if not better product)…

GAH! You burn me with your heresy!!

Also, a trip over the mountain, is… well, its a deeply cathartic experience, two hours of me time where I can listen to MY music… drink coffee… stop at the farm stall in the Elgin Valley and eat pie. All on my own-some. How amazing.

Only now, at the farm stall (where I stuff the last piece of pie into my facehole) they have a Cannabis store.

I step inside, the girl behind the counter is painting in water colors, working on a teddy-bear picture in a kids coloring-in book. This should have been my first warning sign… I glance down, she’s really bad at it… I would venture to say my six year could do a better job.

Do you guys sell gummies? I say, as I scan the shelves, there is a a lot of CBD oil but nothing that looks edible.

Sure she says, reaching into a cardboard box under the counter (warning sign number two). She rattles off some jargon that I don’t really understand about what she has.. its all very acronym-istic … just give me a selection I say. ‘We also have fudge’, she drawls. ‘Oh cool, give me two pieces of that’.

‘Start with 1/3 of a gummy… and work your way up depending on your THC tolerance’.

I acknowledge her advice, with ‘Sure, okay’. But my internal monologue is saying, ‘My THC tolerance is more than up to the task, chick’

To my credit I still have to drive. So I don’t eat anything till I get home.

For backstory I offer up that my shoulder has been absolutely killing me these last three weeks. I haven’t been sleeping and been popping some pretty serious pain killers. And while my shoulder has eased off now I figure maybe I can manage the pain with edibles. If it flares up again. Also maybe this will help me sleep. And old people eat cannabis all the time for their rheumatoid arthritis and their other ‘check engine light’ issues. And I am old now. Maybe this should be my thing…

I eat half a gummy. And then when my wife is home again and I’ve set up the Apple tv I show her my stash. She eats a quarter piece of fudge, ‘Hmm, this is quite nice she says’. I eat the other quarter just to taste. ‘Yeah, this is nice’.

Ten minutes later. ‘Is this hitting you particularly hard?’

‘Definitely!”, she says, but hers eases up soon after. Mine… doesn’t.

Ha ha. I can laugh about it now. But for the next four hours I feel like I’m dying.

At 43 I have my first really bad Cannabis experience.

I tick ALL the side effect boxes.

My pulse rate shoots up to 130bpm and stays there for the next two hours. Its not a full blown panic attack, but its up there. Serious motor-impairment. I would say less paranoia and more hyper-vigilance. Nausea (this is the worst part I think) and… while not quite hallucinations… my visual perception beyond a couple of meters are seriously messed up. Things that are not cats… start to look a lot like cats.

Also my mouth and tongue feel like sandpaper.

Eventually I crawl into my youngest daughters bed… pull the pink unicorn blanket over myself and try to lie still.

If I didn’t know what it was, if I had for example eaten something like this by accident I would have taken myself off to the ER by now.

There is nothing you can do really. Except ride it out.

THC is processed differently by the liver, ie when you ingest it, as opposed to when you smoke it. And the effects on you can be remarkably different.

You learn something new every day.

After four hours I don’t feel like I’m gonna die anymore. But I feel seriously unwell for the next four hours.

I’m never doing drugs again I swear to myself about half way through. I’m never drinking again. I’m gonna lead a virtuous life. A straight edge. I’ll start going back to church. (if ever there was an indication of how awful I felt)

Ha!

In any event, not the panacea I imagined.

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