I hate Cheech and while I'm at it, I'm not too fond of Chong either

I used to be a huge pothead. I loved getting high and I loved smoking pot. I loved most everything about stoner culture with the possible exception of having to have had hang out with some really seedy types who I would never in a million years have hung out with if not for my desire to either get high or buy weed. (I'm not referring to anyone who I went to college with when I say that don't think I'm talking about you if I went to college with you.)

I not only smoked pot, technically I dealt it as well. Now, hold on, I wasn't some drug kingpin or anything. I had friends who smoked it but would not go buy it so I'd go buy it for them so that made me a drug dealer. I never thought about it like that but in the eyes of the law I was drug dealer, but during much of the time I smoked pot, from the late 1970's to the mid 1990's, pot smoking was not a big offense on the radar screen of the local law enforcement types in the towns I lived in.

So, if I smoked pot and sold pot, why then do I hate two of the top pot comedians of all time? Well, I don't really hate them, I just can't stand to watch any of their movies anymore because of one hot summer day back in 1991.

I was in the last stage of my pot smoking life, although I didn't not know it then, on that day in 1991 and I had ridden with an acquaintance to a guy's trailer to buy some pot and to get stoned. I was buying it for a married couple who loved to get high but who did not ever want to be seen with the unsavory types who sold weed back in those days. I also did not drive back in those days so I was at the mercy of the guy who drove over to the dealer's trailer.

Anyway, after confirming with the dealer that he had weed and that he would be there when we got there me and the other guy took off. It was about a 20 mile ride over back country roads to get to the trailer where the pot dealer lived with this family, which consisted of him and his wife, and their three kids, one of whom was a teenage boy who knew all about their father's dealings. So we get there and we find out the dealer and his wife had taken off to go buy more weed and his son tells us that they'll be right back. So we all sit down and smoke a joint.

I'm a pretty laid back guy but I like to hang out in places that are mostly clean and don't reek of old farts, frozen pizza, and small animal piss, which that trailer did. Added to that trailer funk was the fact that it was 95 degrees with 115% humidity outside and you can imagine how uncomfortable I was. But I kept my mouth shut because I was going to get a free buzz, skim a joint or two off my friends bag, and add ten bucks to the price of the bag of pot before I finally sold it to them.

Well, a few minutes turned into a half an hour and his son could see I was getting antsy. So he suggested we watch a movie and he popped Cheech and Chong's Up in Smoke in their VCR. I had seen it when it first came out in the late '70's and laughed my ass off so I was okay with watching it again, it wasn't like he was going to subject us to Howard the Duck or some Judge Reinhold movie after all, so I settled in to enjoy my buzz and to have a few laughs. The guy was going to be home soon anyway I thought, so fine, let's watch this sucker.

By the time it finished the dealer was not back. So we smoked a joint of some vile weed the kid had stashed away and we laughed about the movie we had just seen. We all agreed it was the pinnacle of cinematic comedy and that no one would ever top it. The dealers kid kept raving about how good it was and then he got the bright idea to watch it again. So he rewound it and he pressed play.

At first I thought the kid was just playing a joke on us but he sat there watching it with rapt attention. You would have thought he had never seen it before the way his beady eyes stayed fixated on that TV screen. I began to get anxious. There was no way in hell I wanted to sit through that movie again. Hell, I didn't want to sit in that smelly trailer one more second but I had come for a bag of weed and by god I wasn't going to leave empty handed. So I sat there clenching my teeth, chain smoking Marlboro Lights, and wishing that a meteor would drop from the sky and fall on their TV and VCR, and if it hit the dealer's kid, well that would have been an act of a god that I would have gladly worshiped.

But a meteor did not fall and we had to sit through Up In Smoke for a second time. I was convinced there for a moment that I had died and gone to hell and was only then realizing it. Things got hazy there for a while, people came and went and the temperature in the trailer kept creeping up. Desperation sweat became the dominant aroma in the living room until I managed to rip a good fart that made everyone gag and giggle like 5 year olds. Someone brought beer and it ran right through me which meant that I had to use their bathroom, which oddly enough, was the cleanest room in that trailer.

Then the movie ended once again and before the kid could play it again I dove for the VCR and got it out of the machine. I told him that I loved that movie so much that I wanted to borrow it and I ran out of the house with it and I stashed it in the car I rode over there in. When I went back inside the kid had put in another Cheech and Chong movie. I prayed to any god who was listening for the power to go out or for the kid's drug dealing dad to drive up.

Finally the guy pulled in outside the trailer and he walked in with a big Ziploc bag full of skunky smelling weed. I told him we were pressed for time and that we had been waiting over four hours for him and that we had to run so could he please put our weed in a small baggie so we could go please. He dawdled for a moment but my twitching and incessant badgering convinced him to do as I asked and he gave us our weed and we left.

After giving the couple their weed, after I skimmed a few joints worth that is, and after they did bong hits with us, me and the driver split. On the way back to my house I grabbed the tape I had taken from the trailer and I asked the driver to stop at the first set of dumpsters we drove by. When we stopped I smashed that tape and then tossed it in the dumpster. And as I did so, I vowed to never watch another Cheech and Chong movie as long as I lived and I'm glad to say I have kept that vow.

I'm also glad to say that I quit smoking weed in 1994.