by Liz James
From my Facebook memories... (Suzanne! This is you!)
Oct 30, 2020
A couple of years ago, I posted on Facebook about "Anyone who is wondering how the UU conference went, the summary is: If all goes well, Suzanne will shortly not have stolen any drugs."
First UU conference since weed became legal in Canada.
Suzanne: And then, of course, I had to go to the weed store.
Me: Can I have some of your weed? Because we are all sold out in Saskatchewan. I have never tried it, because I am very responsible and I waited for it to be legal and then I am going to use it as advised under the supervision of trusted friends from Church… You know, it might make a good fundraiser.
Anne: You CANNOT sell weed as a church fundraiser.
Me: Even if you are UU?
Anne: <gives me The Look>
Me: I didn’t mean selling weed as a fundraiser. I meant auctioning tickets to the Liz-tries-weed party.
Anne: Oh. That’s a great plan.
Suzanne: I’m still not giving you my weed.
Me: How much did it cost?
(One time, there was this prank on twitter in which teenagers were texting their parents with “20 dollars per gram”, and then following with a text saying “sorry, that text wasn’t meant for you”. Since my parents do not text, I tried this with my adult son, David, with whom I have a perennial prank war. He was not fooled, and texted back “You are either grossly overpaying for your weed, or grossly underpaying for your cocaine”).
Suzanne: Let me check the receipt. <begins comparing receipt with the paraphernalia she bought, which let me tell you was a LOT of paraphernalia. There were two pipe smokey things, and a lunch box, and something that looked like a coffee grinder. Wrong drug, Suzanne>
Suzanne: HEY—there’s no charge for the weed on this receipt!
Me: Maybe they gave it to you for free because you bought all this crap. David’s Tea has a similar promotion.
Suzanne: These are necessary supplies.
Me: I notice that you bought two pipes, even though you have only one mouth.
Suzanne: One is for sharing, and one is a single hitter.
Me: How very hygienic of you. Why the ninety dollar lunch box?
Suzanne: It is a lock box. For safety. So nobody steals the weed.
<pause. In which we give Suzanne a look meaning “you mean so that nobody steals the weed AGAIN”>
Me: They often start by giving you free drugs, you know. I saw all about it in a video they showed me in grade seven.
Suzanne: Now I have to go back to the store.
Me: No you don’t. You just phone them and give them your credit card number. It’s much easier that way. Trust me. I steal things by accident reasonably frequently, and I’ve developed a great system.
<pause>
Me: Hey, I haven’t accidentally stolen any DRUGS yet, so you can stop giving me that look.
After I get home:
Suzanne <via text>: I phoned the store. They didn’t intend for me to get free weed. We’re sorting out what to do.
Me: This is an extremely UU moment, right here.
Suzanne: Hey—I don’t want to mess up their access. They have to account for their inventory, and there’s the issue of excise taxes.
Now, Suzanne has to spend the whole morning back and forth-ing with the store, because it turns out that not stealing weed is a very labour intensive activity.