Take It With You

My parents split up when I was 14. I lived with my mother for a year until we were ready to kill each other. One weekend when she was away I packed my shit and moved in with my father. The two of us shared a house for the rest of my High School years.

When I was 17 my father had girlfriend that lived in Queens. He would leave work on Friday night and head to her house. I'd see him Sunday night. I suppose his reasoning for leaving me home alone at 17 was that he trusted me.... That and he was a horny single guy for the first time in 15+ years. Either way, his faith was less than rewarded sometimes.

This was one of those times....

My friends learned quickly of my weekend situation. They decided the best thing to do was stock up on beer and weed and come over to watch me Saturday night. I was okay with this since I was pretty broke and weed and beer was expensive.

My buddy came over with the supplies and we drank! We drank until we couldn't see straight... Something like two beers back then! Then we rolled a big joint... I mean a really BIG joint...














We finished that and couldn't feel our faces. Something I discovered while walking into the door frame while looking back, asking "Anyone need another beer"

So there we were, four guys wasted with no women anywhere... (Don't worry, this isn't going "Brokeback") drooling on ourselves.... What to do?

Finally someone comes up with the idea... "Let's get some whippets" Now to the confused, wondering what whippets are?... I'll let Denis Leary explain it...


"Some kid figured this out back in the seventies, and this kid should have been involved in the space program, ok? Some kid took the time and the imagination to go down to the supermarket and figure out if you take a whip cream can container and you press the nozzle on top, just enough before the whip cream comes out, some gas comes out, you snort the gas *snort*, you get high for five seconds"




And that's it basically.... Get some whipped cream and you're all set!

So me and the three stooges head down to Shop Rite. We take a cart and load it up with whipped cream cans. And not the Shop Rite brand, we bought Reddi Whip! After all, no need doing generic whippets. We wanted the BRAND NAME ones!

Anyway, we're pushing this huge cart of whipped cream can down the aisles. I can only imagine what we looked like. I assume, just like four stoned morons... If anyone wanted to they could have had all four of us thrown into rehab right then and there!

In a moment of "clarity" I say:

"Guys, this looks bad. We should get some other stuff to make it less obvious"

We grab some more items off the shelves...

The "shopping list"

1. Doritos
2. Eggs
3. Cookie Dough
4. Motor Oil (I have no idea)
5. Flour
6. TWENTY cans of Reddi Whip!

I reasoned that if anyone questioned us we could tell them "We have to bake a cake"

Of course, we could have decorated a Wedding Cake for 400 with that much whipped cream but I what do you want from me? I was trying to "think" with a numb face.

We checked out and the cashier was laughing at us. At least we were all so paranoid we swore he was. We took the food and motor oil and drove. We were convinced the cashier had called the cops and that they were coming to my house to bust us. Never mind that fact we didn't know the guy and, more importantly, he didn't know us!

So what do four stoned morons do while "Running from the cops?" Well the obvious .... Instead of making a dash back to my house that was less than a mile away, we drove miles and miles to this deserted field kids used to go to get stoned! The ONE place the cops KNEW they could find stoned kids.

By the grace of God no cops came by.... After a half hour there we assumed "the coast was clear" and headed back to my house with our shopping list.

We went down to my basement and shut all the lights out. This way if the cops came by they would think we weren't home. We were pretty bright.

We pulled out my bong and kicked the rest of the weed we hadn't packed into the joint. Feeling good we started on the whippets. Now anyone that has done a whippet knows how this goes... You do one and say "I'll save the rest for later" Then you do another say the same thing. About one minute later you're out of whippets! They call them "Hippie Crack" for a reason. The more you do in a row the higher you get! You literally can't stop until they are all gone. On top of that you feel higher than you ever have!

That copy of Dark Side of the Moon is really..

"The greatest thing ever in the entire WORLD! Play, 'Great Gig in the Sky' again!"

We listen to that song about four times and then I passed out while eating cookie dough with my bare fingers. I woke up with it hardened to my fingers four hours later. Dark Side is STILL playing on "repeat mode" and my friends are slowly coming out of their comas as well. They've all blown curfew by about 2 hours and are about to make a mad dash for the door. I snap out of it for a second and tell them...

"Guys, all this trash, take it with you"

I throw the half case of empty beer bottles and the 20 Reddi Whip Cans into a garbage bag in my room and hand the whole thing to them.

"My father's coming home tomorrow. He can't find this! Throw it in a dumpster somewhere"

They snatch the bag and take off...

I turn off the CD and crash for the night.

I'm awoken to the sound of the Telephone ringing. I answer it and it's my mother asking how I'm doing and what I've been up to? I tell her nothing and I look out the window just in time to see a Police Car entering the driveway. I tell my mother I'll call her back and head outside to see what the hell is going on.... Now keep in mind I just woke up and I had hair down to my ass at this time of my life. That's a rats nest and my eyes are completely blood shot. I have really blue eyes and I could never "hide" anything no matter how much Visine I used. I can't even imagine what I looked like. I assume it was close to Nick Nolte's mug shot from a few years back (I would put the photo here but blogger sucks)

I stagger outside and the cop comes up the driveway and asks me... "Are you (my name)"

Now I guess I could have lied or even been concerned that something happened to my father. However, I had a feeling he was there for me so I said I was.... He pulls out three polaroids and hands them to me. They are photos of the following:

1. 12 beer bottles lined up
2. TWENTY Reddi Whip cans in two separate lines
3. A Domino's Pizza box.

The three idiots didn't take the bag to a dumpster. They took as far the elementary School, six houses away, and threw it on the lawn! The cops opened it up and found the bottles, cans and a fucking pizza box with my name and address on it!

Now, this is LUCK!

I make up some bullshit story about these strange kids from New York that showed up with my friend because they knew my father wasn't home. How they brought all of these cans and beers with them and I told them they could stay if they took it all with them when they left.

The cop bought this for about.... Oh, hell, he never bought it! But, he did take mercy on me. He gave me a five minute lecture on the dangers of whippets and was on his way... Stopping only to tell me that the pictures will remain in a folder at police headquarters until I graduated and anymore screw ups they would be shown to my father.

He was a nice guy.

Years later I volunteered to coach 5th and 6th grade basketball at a local Catholic school. One of my players? That cop's nephew!

Ahhh... The circle of life!