by Eric Schenck
I’ve gotten high with my dad about 10 times.
It’s certainly a unique life position to be in. There’s a specific routine we follow:
- I visit my parents for a few days.
- We catch up the first 24 hours and talk about everything you’d expect.
- I ask Dad if he wants to do a weed gummy with me.
- He says no. Last time was fun but he’s off it for good.
- Mom says he should.
- He says no again.
- My mom insists that it’s good for him.
- Dad caves, and an hour later we are having the time of our lives.
Call it peer pressure. I call it true love.
Do we need weed gummies? Of course not. But boy do they add a hilarious kind of fuzz to everything we do.
And over the last couple years, they’ve given me a lot of laughs, some funny pictures…
And a way to get to know my dad a little better.
…
One of the first times Dad and I eat a weed gummy, we sit in his living room and listen to music. I scroll through Spotify. Nothing feels right. Then I come across an Aretha Franklin playlist.
Bingo.
I’m staring at the ceiling, and hear my dad hitting the carpet with his hand.
I look over to him, and he shakes his head.
“Boy she had pipes didn’t she?”
We discuss what it must be like to actually sing well. Casual conversations suddenly take on a new depth. It’s fun. And hilarious.
Then Dad starts to talk about his family. About his siblings growing up, his parents, what he remembers about his grandpa.
The older I get, the more I find all of this stuff fascinating. Everybody comes from somewhere. And everyone before you had dreams.
Dad provides the stories. Aretha provides the vibes.
…
There’s a card game we’ve played for over 15 years now. It’s called Pitch, and we’ve probably logged over 10,000 games at this point.
It’s fun. It’s simple. And as I’ve found out, it’s the perfect card game to combine with drugs.
Sober, every Pitch hand takes about 60 seconds. But when you’re high? Weed gummies have this funny way of stretching out time. Five minutes can feel like an hour.
And when you’re on a roll with your cards? It’s like the entire universe is focused in on this one game. All of existence is conspiring to make you a winner, and god himself is watching. It feels amazing.
That’s what happens now. Dad deals my hand, I pick it up, and I’m looking at six cards that are as close to perfection as you can get.
It seems unfair to actually play with them. So I don’t. I lay the cards on the table, and lay myself on the ground.
“What the hell?”
Dad is looking at me, frowning.
“Well, at least you didn’t throw them like that one time.”
On a trip home from Egypt, I was going through a dry spell. I had lost a few Pitch games in a row. The cards just weren’t coming my way, and I had thrown the cards across the room in frustration.
Not my proudest moment. But it’s given Dad ammunition anytime my cards are a bit too good.
That was over a decade ago. Time really is a thief.
We never finish the Pitch game. I lay on my parent’s floor and laugh uncontrollably. And then my dad starts laughing too.
He’s not hugging me. But it feels like he is.
…
Mom and Dad have had a hot tub in their backyard for the last year.
I’m always sure to take a dip at least once or twice when I visit. I’ve been in there a lot. Just never with my head in the clouds.
A weed gummy turns a hot tub into a scene from Avatar. Dip your head into the water. You feel the bubbles on your face, and it’s like you’re drifting through the forest as a dragonfly. Everything slows down. The steam makes things extra hazy. Your problems feel a bit softer.
At least – that’s usually how it goes.
One time Dad joins me. This gummy has hit him particularly hard, and he rests his head on the side. I think he’s fallen asleep. But I guess that’s just how relaxed he is.
My mom takes a picture of us. It’s still one of my favorite things ever.
To anybody else it looks like a hostage situation. A well-meaning fellow was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. Enjoying a dip in his tub, before burglars busted down his door. There is probably someone in a mask just off camera holding a gun.
But me?
I see just how great a hot tub can feel when you’re chewing the devil’s lettuce. And just how funny it is when you’re doing it with your pops.
…
After five years of living in Germany, I leave in December of 2023.
Christmas time normally feels relaxing. But this time is different. Five years of bureaucracy and failed relationships is coming to an end, and all I want to do is lay on Mom and Dad’s couch.
I want to feel like a kid again. And that’s exactly what I get to do.
I take a weed gummy, and just as it starts to hit me, everything comes together as one picture:
- Christmas is right around the corner.
- Their house smells like a Christmas tree.
- My brother and sister are coming home tomorrow.
- Dad is making cookies in the kitchen and I can hear him playing Christmas music on the radio.
- There is a certain sound that Mom makes before she finishes up work for the day, and I can hear it from her office.
In a strange way, I feel like I’m living in a movie. I love my parents. And for this brief moment in time, I have them all to myself.
Life after Germany is stretching out in front of me. For the first time in a while, my life feels full of possibility. But at this moment? There’s nowhere I’d rather be.
My dad leans around the corner.
“Want some cookies?”
All is right with the world.
…
The effect of gummies:
- 2.5 mg: a nice little buzz
- 5 mg: a very slight “faded” quality, and I see the funny side of everything
- 7.5 mg: things start getting goofy, and I see the interesting side of everything
- 10 mg: the mysteries of the universe are revealed to me, and even if I don’t understand them, I can certainly feel them
This time is 10mg. Dad is reading a book about World War 2. Our discussion starts like any other.
First we talk about what it must have been like. The sadness. The panic. The violence all around you.
Then things get a bit more philosophical. We determine that your view of human nature you finish your life with is just a product of the time you lived. If you were around during World War 2? See brutality all around you, and you can’t help but think people are twisted. But if your luck of the draw is a more peaceful 80 year stretch? You probably end up more positive about your fellow man.
It’s nothing revolutionary. But in our current state, it feels like one of those mysteries of the universe.
I spend a few minutes thinking about this-
And then apply it to me and Dad.
How lucky I am that we were on the same timeline. Skip a few generations and I would have been his great-great grandson. We would never have all these talks. I would never get to pick his brain. And if that’s what had happened? He’d just be an old guy that I saw once or twice before he passed on.
Think about the people in your life like that, and you start to appreciate them more. We could have missed each other by a few generations, and I hardly would know him. Or never met him.
But we didn’t. We got smacked down side-by-side. And here we were, sitting in his living room, talking about the plight of humanity-
And I realized just how lucky I was.
Call us losers. Call us sinners. Call us degenerates. But one thing you will never call my dad is a bad man. Because on this timeline, or any other one-
He’s the best I could have known.
…
I graduated from college in 2015.
The morning of my graduation ceremony, my dad drives me to the house I share with my college friends. We take a few shots of cinnamon whiskey together. It’s just me and him.
We sit on my front deck while we wait for the rest of my family. It’s mid-morning in May. The sun is shining, and the world feels wide open. Dad turns to me.
“I’m so proud of you Eric.”
I’m lucky. I can’t count the number of times my dad has said this. But this time feels different.
“And something else…”
He puts his arm around my shoulder.
“Mom and I have never once worried about you.”
I smile.
“Like…for my safety?”
He laughs.
“Well that, sure. But what I mean, is that we’ve never been worried that you’re going to find your way.”
I’m finally graduating and get to leave this place. On this of all days I should feel excitement. And I suppose I do. But much more obvious to me is a deep kind of gratitude. I’m heading out into the world, and my dad is certain that I’m going to be fine.
It’s a moment that sticks with you.
…
Most of our weed gummy stories together are funny. But the one that gets to me is one I’ve never told him about.
One day in June I’m at my parent’s house. Me and Dad eat a gummy. Just when it starts to set in, the sun starts to go down.
We head outside to the deck to watch. It’s one of the best things about their house. From here you can see all those hills. All those trees. The sunsets here are incredible, and we sit in silence for a few minutes.
Dad goes inside. I think he’s calling it an early night. But then he brings out his banjo. He’s been playing for over 40 years. If there is one sound that reminds me of growing up, it’s this.
He sits in a chair behind me. I can’t see him, but I listen to him picking the strings for a few minutes. Then he stops.
“You know, this might be the best I’ve ever played. I’m really shredding.”
I laugh. But as I sit there, watching the sun go down, and listening to a song I have heard 1,000 times, I realize something:
My days with a banjo in the background are numbered. A time will come when I will never hear it again. And I know when that day comes, I would give anything to change it.
I sit there with my dad behind me. The sound of picking surrounds me, and the setting sun shines on my face. I start to cry. He doesn’t see it, but it’s for the best. Right now I just want to listen. And that’s exactly what I do.
It’s a melancholy moment. But it’s also filled with joy. And more importantly: I’m fully aware of it. Just me, the setting sun, a banjo-
And Dad.
…
Weed gummies with Dad aren’t about the gummies. They’re about Dad.
Who he is as a person. The things he has to teach me. And, honestly, just having a really good time being goofy with someone I quite like.
Dad does all the things you’d expect from a good parent. He loves me. He supports me. He checks in when it matters.
But he also does something special: he laughs at life with me.
And I don’t think there’s anything better.
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