The Great American Pot Race (With Low-Gravity Side Effects and Red-Eye)
By: Doc Jeffurious – Reporting from A Whole Hell of a lot of Existence
Satire, Sarcasms, and Musings
“I’ve worn lots of shoes.” – Forrest Gump
The American Dream? It’s a hallucination fueled by exhaustion and bad coffee. It is a marathon where the finish line is a heart attack at a desk you probably do not own. You have millions of people spending forty years “maintaining a profession”—which is just corporate-speak for “polishing the brass on the shoeshine stand” until the end.
You have the “menial” crowd. The scavengers. They enjoy a very specific brand of freedom that absolutely terrifies the middle class and most assuredly keeps all of them on their “blue-collar-white-collar wannabe” toes constantly. The suburban crowd will look at their neighbor, the guy with a rusted-out truck, no 401(k) and a well-maintained mullet, and they are baffled as to why he is content to just do his thing, whatever it is. “Why doesn’t he want the $80,000 Hummer? Where is his sense of dignity? Where is his giant, gas-guzzling penis-extension on wheels?! Where does his money come from anyway? Drugs?”
The answer is simple, Brentley: He’s broke! Can you dig that?
But do not worry, don’t you even fret. The poor and the middle class still share plenty of common ground. You still have the self-appointed upper crusts of people emulating what they believe about their notion of what it means to be white collar proper. They are at the top, imagining that they are the top, their nipples erect and aching; literally clutching their pearls and accumulating high-dollar status items. Their spendthriftiness is how they judge others and how they are judged. They are so scared of fucking up and losing it all. Thus, turning into all of those “Karens” and “Justins” we see down at our local Wal-Mart that will call the police on non-whites who are using the fitting rooms or the water fountain.
They are incessantly watching. Keeping public parks safe from family barbeques and asking complete strangers for their “papers” and identification. They are compelled to look for someone else to look down upon and somehow, they always find them. They see themselves as those creamed up little bubbles that somehow find their way back up to the top of a very small bucket, and their friends, the dregs are in constant awe of their possessions as the dregs are easily amused because amusement should be that easy. With the grunts, the working class, they have a completely different outlook on life. Mainly, it is to enjoy what you have daily, because you might wind up without it later in life, like tomorrow…two seconds from now. I mean, the outside of the mobile home might need some seasonal painting, but the reality is does it keep them warm in the winter? Perhaps it is a matter of perception? Both groups worship at the altar of the Powerball; High fiving amazing and sometimes very awful things. They are all apparent proponents of guns, sports, energy drinks, eating ass and medical cannabis, née, medicinal weed.
So, now you have rough, tough, yet also extremely tender-hearted and sensitive, road construction guys that are getting perked up and sort of philosophical on the job from a pack of sativa gummies and getting their jobs done! Not getting drunk and beating each other stupid, or for instance take that shy, dutiful receptionist that used to be high-strung is now mellow and not scared of everything. She has been carving out a new existence. Vaping and going to pottery classes, both white-blue collar and blue-blue collar groups scream along to Tom Petty at 2:00 AM, and neither one of them is ever going to lose a billion dollars in a pyramid scheme. Why? Because you cannot steal a Cadillac from a person who is walking.
When you have been busted and disgusted for long enough, you develop a certain… immunity to the high-level swindle. You aren’t going to hand over your last twenty bucks to a guy in a silk suit promising “groundbreaking research” into spit-powered paper batteries or a NASA-funded study into the achievability of practical sexual positions in low-gravity scenarios.
The rich though? They love that shit. They can absorb “Ponzi” swindles like a fresh sponge absorbs sewer water and still wake up in a pile of Egyptian cotton. They are slaves to their status, their Botox schedules, their vaginal rejuvenations, the rigorous scrotoplasties, and their soul-crushing piles of stuff. It just seems to me and I may be wrong, that it just might be, that a huge chunk of these people foolishly believe that just because they have been self-sentenced to life at the local industrial sweatshop factory and own all this shit, think they’ve “mastered the universe.” They think they have cracked the code!
As it seems now, the truth is over half of ‘em haven’t even figured out how to wipe their own asses let alone have scratched the surface of enlightenment. Really, the only time they “get in touch with themselves”, is when their fingers cut through the piece of one-ply toilet paper that they are using to wipe their attended area with way too roughly. I am not saying that I have been awarded an official decree of obtainment from the universe, but that fact is, that lack of a tangible trophy, is what keeps me a-searchin’ this existence and sampling the concentrated varietals of the absurd tangy flavors that it produces, and witnessing the comical substance that foams up and infects the strange connective tissue of the notion of existing absurdly, or the other way around as it demonstratively becomes more obvious.
The Resume of a Madman
I have always been a fan of variety. It’s the only thing that keeps the brain from turning into grey oatmeal. My resume looks like a police blotter from a fever dream. I’ve been: A grocery clerk and a fast-food slave, a radio DJ and the manager of a now defunct radio station (I am a ghost in the dead airwaves), a newspaper editor and a varnish factory grunt, a pizza delivery dude and a vending machine technician, a gas station pump monkey and a senior citizen chauffeur, I have managed a bait shop, worked in a foul chemical plant located near an oil refinery, sweated with the oldies as a landscaper, and was the host at a gaming parlor. But the real story—the concentrated, weird-on-weird story—started when I became a Budtender.
Part I: The Polyclinic Apothecary Chronicles
In August of 2019, I joined the second generation of legal weed-slingers in Illinois. Working at a joint (haw!) called “The Polyclinic Apothecary” That’s right. That is what they named it, or something similar, situated within a small, interstate crossroad town called Effingham. Which is a very accommodating town. I highly recommend the local restaurants and local music. At this point I will say that some of the names and locations, although approximate, might be changed for legal reasons or if I feel like being a smart-ass. This is a humorist’s firsthand account. A wide thudding finger poking between the shoulders of those that love the absurd. Perhaps instead of a poke, for some it can be an undefendable prod of a thumb or a properly chilled rigid pointy-finger heading right up into their tenderish, jappering area? Ready, Alvin?
It was a name so sterile, so beige, and so aggressively boring that it was designed to trick the local pearl-clutchers into thinking we were handing out aspirin instead of high-grade, mind-bending bud. It worked so well that once I took a phone call from a guy asking if we performed paternity tests. I sadly informed the gent that we were sort of there for after the paternity test. It was a semantic lie designed to make a “weed store” palatable to people who still thought Reefer Madness was an informative documentary. In some ways it did feel like we were living in our own private, little series. A briming dramedy, “The Polyclinic Apothecary”. I was the Abed-type character coming in at the end of Season 1, an alien, a jester, a holy man?
The Pharmacy of the Barmy
We were not “pot-dealers.” God no. We were Patient Care Specialists—a linguistic condom designed to protect, lubricate and in some cases, numb, the town’s fragile sensibilities. We studied the “medicinal properties” of the plant like we were cramming for a series of chemistry finals happening in three other burning buildings all at once. Constantly quizzing each other, on many kinds of topics. The goal? Know the product, sell the product, keep the regulars happy, and for fuck-sake, just keep the damned line moving.
We had a waiting room full of people looking for a miracle, and we gave ’em consultations. One-on-one sessions. We educated the terrified new folks and there were many. I once heard an octogenarian in the lobby bark at his wife, “Give me the cash! How much is this gonna cost?”
She hissed back, “I don’t know! I’ve never been to a drug deal before!”
Bingo! Seventy years of Sunday school and Nancy Reagan’s “Just Say No” propaganda melting away in the face of chronic lower back and knee pains.
The Opioid Grannies
The Seniors were the toughest nut to crack. Skeptical? They were armored in it. You couldn’t just scream, “We’re trying to keep you from checking out on a Fentanyl cloud, Papaw!” You had to be patient. You had to wait for that “click”—the moment they realized the plant wasn’t the Devil’s Lettuce, but a ticket out of the pill-bottle purgatory. Yet, for some, that “click” moment never arrived. You can’t save them all.
I once spent two agonizing hours debating economics with a seventy-five-year-old opioid fiend. She couldn’t wrap her head around the price. Why pay for “theoretical” relief when she could get a ninety-day supply of Hydrocodone—pharmaceutical-grade slow-motion suicide poison—for three hundred bucks?
“Nana,” I wanted to say, “we’re trying to avoid a real “Hallmark Movie: Grandma is a Junkie During the Holidays” situation here. Imagine the Christmas pictures? How you’ll look holding the baby! You’re selfish, Nana! “You’re a selfish bitch! The pictures, you bitch, dammit!” I eventually ground her down until she bought a twenty-five-dollar tin of CBD gummies. She vanished into the night. I never saw her again. She either found God or a better dealer.
That “Recreational” Yum-Yum
Then came the pivot. Illinois was going to be “Recreational”, later “Adult-Use”, it sounds kind of porny, but not much better. I always loved that word “recreational” in the context of pot. Recreational. It sounds like something you do at a summer camp with a whistle around your neck. It implies activity. Action! The “zazz” of a late 1980s lemon-lime soda commercial. People biking, hiking, while inexplicably tossing random toasts with a 7-UP for some fucking reason. Recreational. I see people, Yacht rocking up and down the coast. Gigglin’, spilling a bit of an eightball of the old “oats and barley” and Cold Duck on their toes.
“Hey gang! Grab the rackets! It’s time for Badminton, Butt-Chugs, and Blunts! The winner gets a Gatorade, a bong rip, and a panic attack!”
It was a beautiful, semantic hustle. We went from helping people get restful sleep primarily and many of them would later tell us that because of that rest they were engaging in more physically active hobbies such as walking, pickleball to axe throwing. They became the faces of the “action” the companies wanted displayed. The playful “recreational” archetypes still live on. They were pressed, planted, fake, and they all won the most I suppose. Being a “grunt” on the medical side of the business, I was obviously not made aware of the tidal wave of changes that were to lay ahead. Beginning with the new name of the store in January. “Upwards,” is what they chose, as in… rise, get it? Upwards?
We were “Patient Care Specialists,” a high-velocity public health team of major medical immenseness, masquerading it as a fun retail gig. We weren’t just selling weed; we were launching a preemptive strike against the pharmaceutical industrial complex. We were the thin, green line between a functioning liver and a lifelong prescription for synthetic misery. We looked damned sexy while doing it, we all had a sweet style. Truest of the silliest of gooses and we were serious about our silly gooses. It was all so groovy. The chemistry of our team was somehow blessed. Our vibe was chalked full of grit. While some could disagree with each other vehemently, they would have each other’s backs when it was “time to ride.” I worked with an grand old crew. That’s why I am blessed.
Our crew was a tribal unit—a frantic family held together by M&M cookies, cheeseburgers, industrial-strength caffeine, instant lunch, and a shared “Care Bear Stare” that could kick adversity square in the nuts. Each day the mission was easy, just get the product out the door and into the hands of the suffering, and do it now.
The stress wasn’t just “work” stress; some days it could be a slow-motion trainwreck, others, a beautiful affair. You’d spend half your life counting every single gram in the vault because one missing pre-roll could derail the entire morning. The supervisors at that time were the first to go through the grinder. They’d become infected with a specific brand of corporate madness fueled by the Illinois Cannabis industry’s special policy of micromanagement mixed with poverty…which means you get extra work but not extra money. Yes, Madge, the pay sucks.
It’s a classic American hustle: They refuse to pay a living wage, but they’ll spend a fortune on middle-managers whose only job is to hover over your shoulder and rearrange the office chairs. They won’t feed you, but they’ll damn sure tell you how to chew.
We were living on a prayer and a thin margin of error, peddling salvation in a zip-lock bag while the suits in Chicago checked their spreadsheets. Just another day in the Great American Medicinal Cannabis Show.
Being a Lead Agent-In-Charge became a masterclass in wrestling ring customer service. In the early days, dealing with a foaming-at-the-mouth “patient” was just another tick on the dog. You had to be gritty. These people could smell fear like a shark smells a nosebleed, and if you showed a hint of a tremor, they’d shred you every time. You had to be a hustler—cool, dry, and surgically detached. The aggressive ones would soon multiply. Eventually, budtenders had to learn how to tell truculent customers to “Fuck off!” and damn customer service, because supervisors were dealing with real problems.
Then you had the Bargain Hunters. The dorks. They’d walk into a highly regulated dispensary and try to barter as if we were at a rug market in Marrakesh. “Hey, can I get a deal on this eighth? Give me some freebies!” Right, because that’s how retail works, you dolt. Does the guy at Jumpin Jack Flash give you a discount on premium fuel because you’re a “cool guy” -?
One afternoon a guy stumbled in demanding free RSO (Rick Simpson Oil) because he was—and I quote, “bleeding out of his asshole” Clinically speaking? Repulsive. Humanly speaking? The poor bastard had cancer. So, I did an unthinkable thing. I lent him forty bucks; another budtender threw in twenty, and we sent him on his way with his medicine. Just about a year later, he came back and paid me thirty. We called it even.
To the cynics: sometimes you must take care of people, even when their rectums are failing them. Especially then, by God!
But it wasn’t all grim karma. One of our cancer patients came in once and danced around with her I.V. pole to Queen’s “Don’t Stop Me Now.” We lived for the droll moments—in many times, it could be the kind of side-splitting folly that requires an Olympic feat of strength to keep from laughing. You’re standing there, “badge” pinned to your chest, trying to maintain the “decorum” of a clinical professional while staring into the abyss of human silliness. Lovely little blessed moments.
The best ones were the elderly ladies. Haw! Little sparkplugs and my best customers. I had one grandmotherly-type lean in to ask which gummy would get her husband “in the mood.” So, I revved up my rehearsed spiel about cannabinoids, terpenes, and the “entourage effect,” but she cut me off. She leaned over the counter, and she wanted the lowdown on some of the THC infused “personal” lubricants that she had seen on the internet.
“You know, for my… pussy?” she loudly whispered.
The entirety of what the room had attention-wise simultaneously scanned and tuned in on her, and I so very quickly. All eyes. “Wont’cha take a picture yuh bastards!” Most of them pretend to act to not to listen. Oh, but they are listening; they are interested. She’s naming brands like Ticky-Tacky Motion Potion; Joint Venture, Cannagasm, Couch-Lock & Load, Pistil Whipped, Terpene Tickles, and Bison Liberation—which sounds less like an aphrodisiac and more like a yearly endeavor that the Western National Park Services used to do. No one ever wanted to hear about the cannabinoids, terpenes and the “entourage effect.” FINE! I didn’t want to tell you about them anyway, jerk-asses.
I had to move fast. As a Patient Care Specialist, I had to give her the medicinal fast-track. It’s all the same chemicals, ma’am. But here’s the kicker—especially for those “studs” out there who always think more is better: THC has its own sense of humor.
If you overdose on the “Ice Cream Cake” flavored love-oil, you won’t be rocking the headboard. You’ll be putting the equipment into a chemical coma. It doesn’t make you a stallion; it turns the stallion into a little piggy that can’t root. You might as write the number of Little Caesar’s on the wall and hope someone has a coupon for the crazy bread. Because that’s your night. I was the skillful bloke there to warn people about those side effects. I knew they were going to go home and fuck themselves “un-concho, ‘til it was useless anymore” anyways. However, I am the very picture of professionalism! “For Duty and Humanity!”
PART II: THE RECREATIONAL DIPSY-DOODLE
The rollout of “Adult Use” was a corporate seizure of the vibe, and the whole tribe went subversive! On our side of the wall, we were the high priests of the stash, anointed by the state with electronic key fobs and badges —which were just plastic lanyards that gave us the keys to the kingdom. We signed “secret” attestation forms that read like a blood oath of rules and anonymity from a shadow government, all to ensure the transition from healing the sick to distracting the bored went off without a hitch. But strangely the company started to almost actively discourage the crew from fraternizing with each other. We had one of those district management defects who I will call “Pork Loin” in the building to drive us all apart but, subtly. In my opinion, Pork Loin was definitely not worth all the trouble she caused. Always lurking around the corners, tuning into other people’s conversations, and dare I say may have appeared in a few of our nightmares. Pork Loin was there to oversee the total transformation to an “adult-use” and medical cannabis dispensary.
Friendly tip: Always be suspicious when any pile of corporate “dog-puke” starts getting a little to overly friendly, tossing fist bumps and stale bagels, all the while calling you “rockstar.”
The “Recreational Dipsy-Doodle”- it will get in your hair.
As January 1st loomed, the supply chain didn’t just rattle; it snapped. The medical patients, the people who helped build this industry with their own suffering and blood money, started smelling a rat. The menus were thinning out. Paranoia, the classic side-effect, set in.
“Are they hoarding the flower for the tourists, man? Are the cultivators holding out for the January gold rush?”
I spent my days doing a shrug-and-tic routine that would’ve given a mime a neck cramp. “Who, us? Manipulate the market for profit? At the expense of the dying? Perish the thought, Agnes!” It’s the American Way: screw the loyalists to chase the new money.
THE GREAT FLOWER FAMINE
Eventually, the inevitable happened. We ran out of weed. Plenty of vapes, concentrates, plenty of gummies, but the actual plant? Gone. Extinct.
I was in a consultation with a guy who looked like he hadn’t slept since the Nixon administration and he wanted flower. I jokingly offered him a box of infused cinnamon and raisin breakfast cereal. Bad move.
I’m a big guy. I can usually bluff or “wag” and grin my way out of a confrontation, but this man suddenly possessed a level of “crazed” that I could never match. He gave me a look so cold that it could’ve chilled a thick bottled lager, and it cut to my core. Danger? His face turned a vibrant, monkey-ass red. I stepped back, bracing for a cinematic lunge across the counter, but he just gritted his teeth and pivoted.
I had broken the poor bastard’s spirit with a bowl of psychoactive Fruit-N-Fiber.
“Have a nice day!” I chirped at his retreating back. He paused, weighed the pros and cons of returning to commit a felony, and kept walking. Yup, broken.