Everybody must get Stoned...

Teaching middle school, I find that in order to stay relevant in the minds of my students, I must stay afloat with the latest trends and popularities. Because my own self – worth is dependent upon the approval of people who have yet to discover deodorant and admire individuals who can drink the most spoonfuls of hot sauce, I have to work hard. Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers, Coldplay, some asshole named Soulja Boy, I have to endure some pretty horrible shit to stay “cool”. Sadly, thirty years from now when my students reflect on their experiences in my classroom, what they once saw as my “quirky personality” will take on a new label, “substance abuse.”

For now, though, in an attempt to remain hip to the hop, I created a Facebook account. If you are unfamiliar, Facebook is an online social networking system where young people post information and pictures that will prevent them from ever securing gainful employment and secure early on their role as a dirty, dirty whore.

Perusing my students’ pages, I was shocked by what I found. Thirteen year olds bragging about sexual escapades, fifteen year olds soliciting drugs, and every male college student in America shirtless and evoking the “We’re Number 1” sign. What exactly they are number 1 at I am not sure, but from the comments written on their profile, I assume it is somehow related to “doing all the bitches.”

What is happening to our society?

I couldn’t get laid until I was in college, and even then it was only because she was drunk! And when it comes to drugs, these kids are making deals online, while at 26, I have to wait for my finance to fall asleep, so I can sneak into the basement and smoke out of a Diet Coke can. There is something horribly wrong here!

As I thought more about this injustice, though, I realized something important. They might be living the life now, but it will all come back to haunt them. While using technology to solicit sex and illegal drugs at an alarmingly young age has its blessings, can you imagine if the exploits and decisions from your adolescence were posted for all the world to see? Imagine the CBS National News leading its broadcast with, “In Tennessee today, young John Smith wore white sox with his flip – flops and then masturbated thirteen times. More from our local correspondent on the scene.”

How embarrassing. …

At twelve years old I remembering riding my bike over to my best friend Nick's house for a afternoon of innocent fun. Declaring his vast array of movies and video games unsatisfying, we found ourselves in the default status of all adolescents, “bored.”

“I have an idea”, Nick said to me. “We should get high.”

Now, at this point in our rebellion against our white suburban privilege and parents’ unconditional love, we had only committed minor transgressions. Sharing a cigarette in the woods, taking a sip of our dads' beers when their backs were turned, nothing we really knew to be illegal or wrong. So while I was hesitant at first, Nick finally convinced me to go along when he promised that afterwards we could watch the jumbled images coming through the blocked cable pornography channel, or scrambled titty vision as we liked to call it.

As Nick and I were both retarded and had no clue as to what it meant to get high, we went looking through his kitchen to find something that resembled the drugs we had seen on TV. We consequently learned that cocaine’s street cred as “nose candy” has nothing to do with snorting sugar.

Ready to give up, Nick had a breakthrough: we should smoke something! That’s what homeless people do! Searching through his mother’s spice rack and finding nothing that sounded particularly illicit, we came upon some Lipton tea bags. Suddenly, in the majesty and pure beauty that is the adolescent mind, we had an epiphany.

The next thing I knew, Nick and I were hidden in a shaded corner of his backyard, using paper from my math notebook to wrap –up the contents of half a tea bag. (We decided not to use the whole bag, as we did not want to get too “messed up.”) Moments later we were passing back and forth the world’s longest joint as my notes on long division delved into flames. Besides the massive blaze pouring from the end of the paper, making it impossible to hold it anywhere near our faces, and our inability to actually inhale, Nick and I were fucked – up.

Neither of us were sure how to act in such a situation, so Nick began ranting about seeing a giant purple dinosaur to which I replied with the nodding of my head and repeating “yeah man, yeah man.” Hearing the slamming of the backdoor and his mother’s call for dinner, we were suddenly scared back into sobriety.

The school year ended only a few weeks later, and I went away to my Dad's house in Indiana for the summer. When I returned, there was never again any mention of our little psychedelic tea party and to this day I think both of us would like to forget it ever happened.

But can you imagine if Facebook had been at our disposal? Within minutes we would have changed our usernames to “Cheech and Chong” and transformed into the Timothy Leary of herbal teas. Green is a nice mellow high, but beware the “pure leaf” bags. You might never come back from that…

Oh, technology is grand, but I for one am glad to have grown armpit hair before discovering it.