Bad taste in my mouth

People grow and understand that the choices they have made in the past were not the smartest, or the wrong ones. But none the less we learn from every single choice we make and action we take good or bad. This is the story of an action that was a very bone headed one in my behalf but funny enough to write about it.

There I was, looking around the back of shoe store for the right size of shoe the customer had just asked me for and for the life of me I couldn't find it, but this story begins about 2 hours prior to this situation in the front yard of one of my friend's, we had been out of school for about an hour and I had to kill time before I went to work so I was chilling with my buddy Adrian (many stories to tell about him and I) and we decided to head over Ken's house so there we were driving in my 89 Ford Escort GT, oh yeah rolling in high class. This was my first car and I loved it, I had it all pimped out (or so I thought) lowered, exhaust, sound system the works you know how we Cali boys do it. We roll up and we knock on the door and out came Ken and his buddy who's name I can't remember for the life of me.

"Ready to taste some of the good stuff?" Ken asked us to what we replayed in great enthusiasm "Hell yeah man, don't hold out on us" You see I was young and dumb, about 17 years old and I thought like many young men do "I'm the man and smoking a little weed won't hurt me, I can't get addicted" I was right, thank God I never got in to it like my buddy did, he is one of the biggest pot heads I know and here I was walking the same footsteps, but I was cool for chilling with the pot heads I mean this is all high school was about right? fitting in

Deep inside of me I knew I was messing up but somehow I didn't care, it's like I wanted to brake the rules of my house and of my religious believes to show them I wasn't like the rest of the followers, but sadly enough I was all I was trying to avoid. Well back to business, there we were sitting in Ken's front porch, pipe in one hand and the lighter in the other, here we go, this is what separates the men from the kids, the mouse from the lion and I was a Lion, a leader who didn't play by the rules of everyone else, as I light up the pipe I remembered my mom's many talks about drugs, how sad would she be if she saw me right now, how would my brother react? I didn't care so I took my manly puffs. "Puff, puff, give, puff, puff, give" is all I kept thinking, ah the soothing sounds of Cris Tucker's voice echoed in my mind, I was a rebel, braking the law and not caring. Look at me world! I'm a man and I'm smoking weed to prove it, on my friends front porch none the less, that was to show the law that I wasn't scared of them. Why should I be? I was 17 years of age, a man by my standards, I was able to go in to rated R movies without a parent, I could go in to the adult stores (which I did as soon as I turned 17 just to say I did it) I was able to drive by myself, no parental supervision as I now had a real drivers license not a permit.

"Wow, my thoughts are a bit drag dude!" I said out loud, I was high and a bit confused. This was only the second time doing this so I wasn't used to the feeling like my friends were, I remember raising my hand in front of my face and waving back and forward and seeing ghosting of my hand if you will, laughing for no reason, feeling extra slow in thought and speech. To this day I don't know why I got high, I wasn't crazy about it and it was sure enough something that didn't make me feel good, peer pressure is hard to overcome when you are striving for friendship and I was striving to be accepted by these morons. So there we were the four of us, high as can be thinking we all cool. "Well fellows I'm off, can't be late to work" I wasn't making a great impression at work to begin with and I'm sure showing up late and high would make things even better.

"Hey man give me one of those Starburst, my mouth tastes and smells like weed" I told my friend Adrian, he looked at me with a smile and said "Dude I'm out" with a big grin on his face. Great there I was about to drive high to work with the stench of weed in my mouth, whats one to do? I hop in to my car and start driving off, think fast man I kept telling myself. I had some cologne in my car, Michael Jordan to be exact. I had just gotten it for Christmas and I proceeded to spray myself down with it to cover up the smell. Then I began to formulate what I thought at the time was a genius idea, if the smell of the cologne is good enough on clothes and I needed to refresh my breath why not spray my mouth with it?. When people tell you that you can't think straight when you are intoxicated in any way shape or form they are telling the truth. I did one of the dumbest things ever, I opened my mouth wide open and placed the cologne spray right to my tongue, I pressed the top of it and it discharged the liquid all over my mouth.

For a moment I waited for the goodness to spread through my mouth, com on refreshing taste of Michael Jordan do your magic. But it never happened, to my surprise it started to sting and the taste that came about was horrid. But how could this be? It smelled so great it just had to taste just as good right? My mouth tasted so nasty and my tongue started going numb. "Great" I thought, now I won't be able to talk "stupid Adrian taking all the Starburst" I thought to my self. Well I had no choice but to toughen up and just deal with the taste and the numb feeling. So there I was walking up to my job, "Vans Shoe Store" I read as I walked up thinking to myself that the letters were bigger than what I remembered.

Staring at a lady I remembered that she had just asked me to bring her the right size for her to try on our shoe, the Spicoli black and white checkered shoes made famous by Sean Penn in his cult classic Fast Times at Ridgemont High playing, well what do you know, a pot head. Well I ran to the back and there I was, looking around for the right size of shoe the customer had just asked me for and for the life of me I couldn't find it or remember it, so I grabbed a size 8. I walk back to her and say "I only found an 8, will that be OK?" she looked at me for a few seconds lost in thought, it seemed odd that she would do that but then she said "I didn't ask for help" Oh boy I was still high! "Sorry about that mam" and I walked across the room to the right lady sitting down waiting for me to bring the shoes and again I say "I only found an 8, will that be OK?" and again that blank stare. I was beginning to get frustrated thinking that I was going crazy, but then she said "That's the size I asked for to begin with sir" ah OK, I turned bright red and just gave her the shoes. I swore never to smoke and work at the same time after that little mishap.

I shortly got fired and stopped smoking weed because of a bad high, not the brightest of many dumb decisions I have made in my life but they sure do make for great stories right?