Been there, Done that

'Twas the summer of 1974. Spokane was experiencing a much-needed make-over in the guise of a back-yard sort of "World's Fair," called in Spokane, and nowhere else, 'Expo 74,' from which the youngish and indigent locals, like myself and my friends (due to the corruption and nepotism, among local politicos and New York based service corporations, by whose agency such shindigs  as world's fairs are organized), greatly, unfairly, even somewhat nefariously, profited. Many of us worked in concessions at the fair, but those of us who made the really big bucks, worked as parking lot attendants, selling (and re-selling) tickets, at five dollars a pop, to people for parking their cars in open-ended parking lots in which it was impossible to ascertain how many, or if ever, cars were being parked. My work schedule, ideal as I still think it, was a 4-day week, with alternate 3-day and 4-day weekends--I worked it out with my boss.

It was a prosperous and a fun time, overflowing with crank (speed) and pot, which in my opinion are naturally complementary drugs. My friend Kirsten, at whose little house (sleeping on the couch) I was staying, however, alas, about six weeks into the summer, fell ill of pleurisy.  It was then, actually, my pleasure to "cure" her with copious drafts of medical-marijuana tea--approximately a lid (roughly, an ounce), boiled up, at a time.  After a week or so of which regimen, she was much improved, while I had come down with a wretched flu/cold (probably from meeting all those people in my "parking lot"). So I boiled up and ate a lid of marijuana for myself--and a couple of hours later I found myself trying to turn myself in at Deaconess Hospital Emergency. I remember a nurse asking me my name, and several other rather invasive questions--and my replying:

"I would tell you, Mademoiselle, but it would be dangerous for you to know. Would you, please, lend me your rouge-pot?  I seem to have misplaced mine."

I was scared, and I thought I might be looking pale--and I had never before, in my life, heard of a Panic Attack.

After a few minutes of my politely but sadly evading their questions, the nurses still somehow dug out of me that I had just eaten much, much too much marijuana, and I was summarily given a large injection of Thorazene (anti-psychotic, in the butt--it hurt) and sent home, where I slept for two days. I awoke feeling marvelously refreshed and completely cured of my cold.