Weeds

I have received marijuana as a tip twice in my life.

The first time was when I was (briefly) working as a tech at Sears Auto in 2003. One Sunday, a sort of nouveau-hippie couple came in in a Honda Civic with the spare on a hub with only three of the original four studs left, one of which the dude-hippie turned out to have cross-threaded in the process of getting the spare on. They were either on one hell of a road trip, or they lived in their car, which smelled... well, I don't need to tell you. Just imagine two hippies living in a Honda Civic. The lady-hippie spent most of the (long, long) time they were stuck at our shop, while we tried to get our hands on a new stud on the one day in seven that no-one we had an account with would deliver, roller-skating around (mostly on the wrong side of the little yellow line that is supposed to separate customers from finger- and foot-crushy things) while smoking cigarettes, which I'm pretty sure you weren't supposed to do, no matter which side of the line you stayed on. When we finally bid them adieu, lady-hippie came closer to me than I really would have liked (not that she wasn't cute, but I really hate the smell of patchouli, and the addition of BO doesn't make it any better) and said the fateful words:

"do you smoke?"

The answer to that question, at the time, regardless of what exactly you were asking me about, was pretty much yes, which was what I said, which maybe was ill-considered in light of the fact that my employment at Sears was contingent on my urine not containing traces of anything frowned upon by the DEA. But the answer was yes, and "yes" I said, to which she replied "you've been so nice, and everyone else here has been such an asshole" (I may be am an asshole but I am also damn good at customer service), reached into her pocket, and came back with something in her hand. I (again, stupidly) held out mine, and received a small nugget and a couple random bits of some pretty low-quality weed, which I then had to figure out what to do with until my shift was over (no question as to what to do with it then. I may have had standards [probably not] but Sears didn't pay that well).

Which brings me to the second time. The second time was yesterday, in the lab I teach at (medium-sized public university). One of my students - who is failing, but they all are - said to me "hey, I've got something for you" and held out a folded up sheet of paper. Now, I am no idiot. I knew exactly what was in that sheet of paper. I am also, as previously mentioned, kind of a total asshole. But I am cursed with slow reactions and an underlying unwillingness to be impolite to anyone unless I have thought about it and decided to be, and I like this kid. He is nice, polite, asks questions, seems to give a shit... He's one of the few kids in my lab whose name I actually remember.

So I held out my hand, took his little paper packet of weed, and put it in my pocket.

We can never speak of this. Which is why I wrote about it and put it on the internet. But I'll deny everything.