Sweetening the pot

Sweetening the pot

I’ve been an incurable insomniac since the age of five, when I became convinced by the minister of our local parish that I would burn in hell for eternity because “I took the name of the Lord God in vain.” For the next few years, I spent entire nights praying to the Hairy Thunderer in Heaven for forgiveness, with one prayer allocated for each “swear word” uttered or conceived.

No sleep for the anxious or the wicked.

Eventually, other sources of insomnia reared their multitudinous ugly heads, including a mortal fear of nuclear war fueled by the 1962 Cuban missile crisis and by the atomic bomb preparedness exercises that were inflicted on us as primary school kids. (We were taught how to hide under our desks to escape radiation and incineration.)

So for nearly 70 years, I’ve spent my nights thrashing about like a landed trout, while trying out various strategies to sleep more than a few broken hours per night.

Geezerdom has only exacerbated this dire condition. With age, my prostate has taken on the size and shape of a pulped watermelon, triggering a need to pee every couple of hours, thus rendering any sustained shut-eye “the stuff that dreams are made of.”

And the megadose of anxiety injected the world over in March 2020 has served to seal my fate. Sleeplessness not Brittania rules my waves.

Of course, I’ve tried all sorts of remedies, ranging from meditation to medication. To no avail.

Last week, during another interminable sleepless night, there occurred a Eureka moment: I could seek solace and advice from local purveyors of cannabis culture.

My wife and I have recently moved back to Canada, where pot can be purchased without fear of legal reprisals.

In the province where we reside, a cannabis consumer with a sweet tooth can even buy tasty THC-laden comestibles.

So I decided to visit one of the countless cannabis emporiums that dot the highways and byways of our new home town and to inquire about cannabis cures for terminal insomnia.

Now these establishments are in a class of their own. First of all, they all have frosted windows, suggesting that illicit or lurid activities may be unfolding within their sinful confines, although the translucent barriers are generally festooned with images of majestic mountains and chipper creatures, stoned birds and chipmunks chilling out in the bosom of Mother Nature.

Rocky Mountain High

Blanching with trepidation, I stealthily crossed the pot shop threshold, irrationally feeling like a Jesuit in a house of ill repute.

The interior of this den of iniquity seemed a cross between a five-star airport lounge and a twenty-first century version of Ali Baba’s magic cave. It was decorated by munchkins with a flair for Contemporary Cannabis Zen and featured an electronic screen upon which descriptions of all manner of bliss-inducing products endlessly scrolled, mesmerizing and whetting the depraved appetites of the denizens of the den.

A young woman, ensconced behind a tastefully decorated counter, offered to assist me.

At first, I was dazed by her self-presentation; interacting with this intrepid vendor of intoxicants was like querying a creature formed of remnants from my father’s old toolbox, her face and body being pierced with a vast array of nuts and bolts.

Upon recovering from my initial trance, I explained my plight and she sympathetically urged me not to worry. The Rocky Mountain High Emporium carried just the sorts of local products that would cure what ailed me.

When informed that my previous forays into cannabis land tended to fuel my anxieties, the toolbox lady unctuously described various sleep-inducing edibles that would guarantee sustained slumber.

I promptly purchased an array of laced chocolate and caramel balls and an assortment of psychedelic gummies. Satisfaction guaranteed.

During this entire experience, I cast my eyes about furtively and felt inordinately guilty.

After completing the transaction, I began to babble uncontrollably to the soothing salesperson and to the hirsute store manager by her side, informing them that when I was their age a person could go to prison for the purchase that was just terminated with the insouciant tap of a credit card. Their eyes glazed over, not from ingestion of THC gummies but from the soporific effects of the tedious torrent of reminiscing proffered by a ridiculous relic of Woodstock Nation.

It was time to go home, ingest a gummy, and spend another sleepless night cringing about doddering and droning on, a superannuated former hippie, turned embarrassing old geezer bore.