Pillsbury Bake Off

I think I accidentally got high with my teenager.

We were in the car, driving home from her guitar lesson. Normally the drive home after guitar is uneventful, except for the scrawny teen holding an arrow-shaped sign outside of an oyster house. He wears a hoodie and has a rattail, which is very retro of him, and he holds a sign to the restaurant which he twirls in such an expressive way that you can feel his angst and boredom with every spin. We refer to this tormented soul as my daughter’s "boyfriend," and he is usually the highlight of the drive home.

Last week was unusual, and not just because we got stoned. Most of the time there is some afternoon traffic, but last week it was at a standstill, the kind of traffic that screams major car accident.We had no choice but to sit in it, inching slowly forward, moving maybe one car length per five minutes.

My daughter and I had already exhausted our conversation options. How was school? Fine. Do you have homework? Yes. Anything interesting happen today? No. After an obligatory fight over who controls the music, we settled on the next best thing, which was to study all the cars around us for anything amusing.

In front of us was a big fan of the Second Amendment, which we knew from his giant automatic weapon second amendment window sticker. I don’t know if it’s even a sticker, but whatever it was, I don’t understand how the driver can see with the entire rear window covered in guns.

To the right of us was a tricked out former police car, still with its spotlight on the driver side. It was a Ford something, navy blue, with oversized wheels, overly tinted windows, and a little personalized sticker that said “Mr. Fresh.”  The car vibrated with the excessive bass from whatever music was blasting within.

“Look, it’s Mr. Fresh,” I said to my teen.

As if on cue, the darkened driver side window rolled down, revealing a man with a ball cap and chin length cornrow braids. In his left hand was a thin cigar with a plastic filter on the end. He inhaled deeply and blew the smoke out of the window, in my car’s general direction. Then he began to dance. His braids swayed to the beat of the music, as he did this little shrugging thing with his shoulders, looking left and right, a giant smile on his face.

“Is that a blunt?” my teen asked me.

“How do you know what a blunt is?” I asked her.

“Wiz Khalifa. Plus, I’m in middle school. So, is it?” she said.

I was a little shocked, but with no good reason. When I was in middle school, I saw someone snort cocaine on the back of the school bus. One of my good friends in Gifted got suspended for possession of marijuana and had to go to that scary middle school, the one that was a minimum security version of juvie, the alternative to an outright expulsion. My high school had monthly visits from the Feds, complete with drug sniffing dogs that would smell every locker inside and every car in the parking lot. And that was the 80's. So what if she could identify a blunt? She could also identify a meth head. The more times change, the more they stay the same.

“Yes, it is. I guess that’s one way to deal with this traffic. Not that I am condoning drug use behind the wheel, because I’m not.”

“Mr. Fresh sure looks happy, “she commented.

“Indeed,” I replied.

We were trapped there, with the other cars’ exhaust mixing together with Mr. Fresh’s second hand smoke, until I kid you not, everything became really funny to both of us.

We giggled, which gave way to full laughing, until my teen said,” This is horrible. Now I know what weed smells like. I’ve lost my youth. My innocence is gone. Now I will know every time I go to a concert, every time I walk through a college dorm.”  She’s not dramatic at all.

I looked out my side window into the car on my left.

“Look at that guy,” I said. “He looks like an exploded can of biscuits.”

The teen peered over me to get a good look at the doughy man behind the wheel.

Then we laughed some more, with some snorting, and eventually a little choke, her, not me. She also had tears streaming down her face.

“Mr. Fresh to the right of us, and Poppin' Fresh to the left,” I shouted, laughing at my own joke.

“Who’s Poppin' Fresh?”

“That’s the Pillsbury dough boy’s name,” I told her.

“The Pillsbury dough boy has a name?” she said.

“You know what a blunt is, but you don’t know the Pillsbury dough boy’s name? Where have I failed you as a mother?” I said.

 

 

Traffic started moving, and we laughed our way home, slowing to a few giggles here and there by the time we pulled in the driveway. My teen ran inside and headed straight for the pantry, where she began to shove whatever she could find in her pie hole. This is commonly referred to as “the munchies.”

“Stop that,” I said, “It’s almost dinnertime."

We never did pass a car accident.