Hung-upedness

There is also the experience, known clinically as “Hung-upedness,” which strikes everyone regardless of race, creed, color, political posture or place of national origin of the grass. Small tasks or insignificant things take on tremendous importance and interest. Often you find yourself doing some little thing over and over, like scratching, or picking lint off of your dog, or staring at a tiny spot on the wall. Sometimes when you run into the kitchen to find out what happened to your friend (see above if you’ve forgotten about your friend), you’ll find her closely examining the tiny splashes that the dripping water makes in the sink. She probably has forgotten all about the Tab that she wanted so badly - which is just as well. Dietetic soft drinks are for the weak in spirit anyway.

Time distortion and hung-upedness act together quite often, and you find yourself doing something inane for a long time and thoroughly enjoying it, even though every now and then you think you’ve been doing it forever.

When you do do something dumb, such as to watch “The Price Is Right,” or “The Flying Nun” on T.V., another symptom is revealed. After staring like idiots at the show for eighteen minutes, someone will ask, “Why are we watching this stupid nonsense?” You will all turn and smile and nod at the one who asked the question, then resume your watching, as will he who spoke, until the show has concluded. Why? Because a basic truth about being stoned is that everything is good. Nothing is bad. Some things are phenomenally good, but nothing is phenomenally bad (except getting arrested - but even that’s a learning experience.)

Funnyness

This is one of the most pleasant and exciting psychological changes which occurs. There’s a little spot in your mind which tells you when you think something is funny and grass expands that little spot until that little spot takes over and everything is funny. Everything. Your friend’s teeth are a riot. A simple “Hello”brings on storms of laughter. And something which is genuinely funny, like hearing a good joke or watching the Marx Brothers can turn you into a convulsive maniac, writhing in agony and pleading for help. Going out in public in this mood can be a risky act because of the laughing problem, as you find yourself laughing at people who are not stoned and fail to see what is so amusing. Sometimes they hit you.

Passivity and Inertia

Passivity is another of the signposts of the stoned condition. Everyone is more passive when stoned than when straight. This does not mean that everyone is passive when stoned in the pure sense of passive. Hell’s Angels get stoned a lot and they’re not passive. They’re mean and nasty. But imagine just how mean and nasty they’d be without grass. They’d probably get rid of their little bikes and buy tanks and steam rollers to run you over with.

The story which capsulizes this passivity isn’t very funny, but it’s valid. If you haven’t heard it before we claim to have made it up. Three men come to a walled city at midnight. A sign on the bolted door on the wall to the city reads, “This Door Will Remain Locked Until 9 A.M. Tomorrow Morning.” Just by coincidence, the three men happen to be an alcoholic, an acid head, and a user of grass. (Yeah, you guessed it. It’s one of those rotten three part jokes.) After reading the sign, the alcoholic says, “Let’s break down the door.” The acid head says, “Let’s just float through the keyhole.” And the grass user says, “Let’s sit down and wait for tomorrow morning.”

See, we told you it wasn’t funny, but it’s true. And true is more important than funny. Of course, when you’ve got a funny truth, then you’ve got something.

One of the reasons for this passive feeling is the law of inertia, which results from the fact that whatever you’re doing at the moment is too good to leave.

If you’re lying quietly in bed listening to music and enjoying your ecstatic joy, someone invariably says, “Let’s go out.” They want to take a walk, or eat, or whatever. This becomes the last thing in the world you want to do. All you want is to lie there and listen to the music. But finally you get up, put on your clothes, and start to go - and now you’re filled with excitement about your adventure. Nobody, no matter what, could ever get you back into that bed. Well, maybe not nobody.

The rule is that your body, if in motion, will tend to stay in motion unless acted upon by an outside force; and if it is at rest, it will tend to stay at rest, unless acted on by an outside force. Say that’s pretty good.

This whole thing could be very dangerous to your budget if you happen to wander into a store while stoned. Because you will like everything, you’ll want to start buying things. And once you start, it’s hard to stop. So avoid stores of any kind, especially supermarkets. They are the deadliest because they combine these qualities with that of the importance of food. Enter a supermarket and you will ram things into your shopping cart that you never noticed before, like Pez candy or banana flavored Maypo. You can’t possibly pass by the smoked oyster section - those pleading eyes and those little tails wagging with joy at seeing you. And at the checkout stand you’ll probably make an offer on the shopping cart because it’s fun to get pushed around in. And you’re going to be very confused the next day as to what to do with twelve pounds of mangoes.

Our friend Ernie once let this buying tendency get the better of him. One day when we were in his posh Highland Avenue apartment, we noticed a hundred and twenty assorted little glass pigs sitting on four walnut bookshelves hanging on the wall. You know, the kind you buy along with a pole lamp, just after you graduate college. We didn’t think Ernie was the kind of guy who’d collect little glass pigs, so we asked him about them. “I don’t collect them,” he said sounding slightly angry. “I bought them all at once last week when I was stoned.” “What do you do with them?” we asked in unison. “Nothing,” he answered. “Don’t you ever look at them?” “Yeah,” he said, “sometimes. But only if I’m stoned.”

The next installment of ‘A Child’s Garden of Grass’ will be posted next weekend. A single post containing the complete running-copy will be online soon.