Thursday, March 19, 2009

Acid rain and underpants

I realized the other day when I asked for requests that I neglected to fulfill one from long ago, and no- I'm not referring to that dude in high school who asked me to play his "skin flute". Lord, I can't even play the triangle- that dude was seriously confused.
Anyways...Someone (I believe it was you, Patti) asked me to tell the whole story of my one and only experience with a certain illegal substance.
Fine, here you go:

If my less-than-stellar memory is correct, this would have been the summer of maybe 1990, right before I made my first move to the bustling Twin cities area and moved in with the former competitive roller skater. (The pic is the only one I could find from approximately that time, so you can have a visual. My eyebrows seem to be multiplying at an amazing rate and threatening to stage a coup here.)

The Rainbow Gathering was in town that year, and many of my substance-inclined friends had basically moved to the woods or wherever the hell those hippies were spending the summer wiping their butts with leaves and stuff. It was quiet in Duluth, and my roommates and I were spending most of our time hanging out at our apartment drinking wine coolers, eating McDonald's and watching MTV.

Our apartment was an old three-bedroom, second-floor deal on third & eleventh in Duluth. We rarely locked the doors (and even if we had it didn't matter as it seemed like everyone in town had a key), so we seemed to have a steady stream of riff-raff, potential boy-toys, people needing a place to crash, and pretty much anyone looking for some semblance of a "party". We were nothing if not good hostesses. The decor was early "thrift store", including the obligatory scary couch and rickety, mismatched tables and chairs. We had a mannequin, Olivia, at the top of the stairs whose outfits changed almost as often as ours did. And yes, on occasion, both Olivia and ourselves would greet the morning after a particularly blurry party wearing a t-shirt, boxer shorts and high heels.

The night in question found a few of us hanging around, drinking vodka & kool-aid and just sitting around wondering if we were missing out on something better to do. We discussed stories we had started hearing trickle out from the Rainbow Gathering- stories of a dizzying merry-go-round of hook-ups, near-death experience drug use, and dirty, naked hippies talking about their "auras". We were repulsed, enthralled, and slightly aroused. We were party girls, but our upbringings prevented us from taking our rebellion THAT far. Plus, I was scared to death of catching an STD of any sort, and I was convinced that herpes was airbourne and gonorrhea flowed like water at the Rainbow Fest. I didn't need or want to go there to find out for sure.

My friend, who I'll call "Dizzy", and I were in a squirrely mood. We were sitting around with our friend Slimy (who, coincidentally, we had both messed around with at one point or another. Duluth is nothing if not incestuous), getting a bit past the point of tipsy. Slimy had a reputation for kind of smarmily (is that a word?) trying to seduce women, especially the drunk ones. It was a weeknight, but we all stayed up talking, drinking and trying to figure out what other sort of trouble we could get into.

Before we could even finish our thoughts, Slimy pulls out a little plastic box from his pocket, and from the box he pulled out a small piece of paper.
"Know what this is?" he asked.
Dizzy and I just looked at it- we were still a bit naive in the ways of drugs, but we hated looking like rubes so we kept our mouths shut. I looked at him and raised my substantial eyebrows warily.
"Well..." he went on, "this is Rainbow Acid from the Rainbow Gathering. It's pretty strong but a lot of fun- you guys wanna give it a try?"

Normally, I would have thought about this long and hard, because- and I have mentioned this before- my being raised on a steady diet of ABC "afterschool specials" pretty much had me convinced that most drugs would either kill you instantly the first time you tried them, or you would surely end up in a wheelchair eating cheeseburgers through a straw and having your Mom take you to prom out of pity. Our parents drank, and other than that one time my dad slept on the lawn, booze seemed- to us- to be fairly fun and benign. Drugs? Not so much.

Normally.

But, as we were 3/4 in the bag already and I had the day off tomorrow...why not? How bad can it be, I thought as I took the tiny square of paper and stuck it on my tongue. Really- how bad?

For an hour or so, I felt nothing. Nada. We sat around, had another kool-aid cocktail, and waited. I started to get kind of antsy. "What should I be feeling? I don't feel anything", I said.

"Just wait", Slimy said with a smirk. My guess is that Slimy thought he had a fun evening ahead with either one or both of us giving into our wonton hippie-girl sides and deciding that maybe tonight was a good time to give that whole "bisexual" thing a try that was seeming to be so popular lately.

Not so much.

For me, it started out with all of the colors that I saw kind of getting a Southwestern hue- terra cottas, dark green, hazy gold. I sat and stared out the window for what seemed like an eternity going "Santa Fe coooolllooorrrrrssss..." Slimy was transfixed with staring at his hands in-between telling me what he thought would happen to me next. Dizzy had disappeared.

After a long stretch of staring at the sky through our dirty windows, I snapped up and decided that Dizzy had to see the Santa Fe colors as well- so I went looking for her. Where the hell was she?
I heard noise coming from our bathroom, and the door was closed. I knocked. "Dizzy? You OK in there? Can I come in?"
I heard a warbly reply that sounded like yes, so I went right in.
There she was, naked, laying on her side in six inches of water trying to swim. "Im in the wooooomb", she kept saying. "I'm in the wooooomb."
Even in my state, I knew this was funny.
"Dizzy- you are NOT in the womb- you're in my bathtub. And you're naked. Why are you naked?" I giggled.
All I got was more splashing and "wooooomb..."
Slimy looked like a wolf at an all-you-can-eat sheep buffet.

Slimy and I (after much giggling and pouring cold water on Dizzy) went to the back porch where I kept a perma-grin on my face and stared at the sky like an idiot. He hit on me repeatedly, I may have kissed him to shut him up, I don't remember for sure. Yuk.

After a while, Dizzy emerged from the womb, wearing her unders and bra. Then, it started to rain.

I think I had the brilliant idea to go out and splash in puddles. Problem was, in our state the closest we could get to an actual "outfit" was our unders, our Chuck Taylor lo-tops and our biker jackets.
So, there we were, in front of our apartment on a normally fairly busy street, jumping in puddles in our underwear and giggling like idiots. It was awesome. Being a weeknight and absurdly late, there wasn't a soul around (well, not that we noticed anyways).
After much splashing, and once our shoes were soaked through, we went across the street and laid down in the grass by a parking lot and just stared at the trees, still in our unders. I was still deep into my "Santa Fe" thing still, and Dizzy was muttering about "people" and "butterflies" or something. Slimy had gone inside.
I don't know how long we laid there, but after a while something started to go wrong for me. My belly was all topsy-turvy and my "Santa Fe" thing started turning into a "Rosemary's Baby" sort of thing. I got a bit paranoid and discombobulated. I ran inside, not bothering to see if Dizzy was with me. I ran into my room and laid on the bed, muttering about if I was going to die or not. Slimy sat there and both comforted me and tried to cop a feel at the same time- like Prince Charming, that guy was.
The best part was, for what ever reason- the combo of acid and booze started giving me the worst bloating and gas I had ever felt. I was drugged-out, paranoid and farty, and all I had was some douche who gives acid to drunk chicks to keep me company. The most awesome part about this is he STAYED and STILL TRIED TO GET SOME ACTION even though there was a light fog hanging in the air from all of the mostly-silent farts I was slowly and painfully releasing.
I. Was. Miserable.

At some point I fell asleep, and when I woke up to the phone ringing. Slimy and Dizzy were both gone, thankfully.
My Mom was on the phone and wanted to get lunch (it was noon already). Argh.

I couldn't say no even though I was still feeling the effects of the acid, so I hopped in my car and took my Mom to Perkins for lunch. All I can say is having lunch with a parent, on acid, is one of the stranger things I have ever done. Her words seemed to come out reeeaaally slowly, and my pauses before speaking seemed to last 5 minutes each and were accompanied by the light jingling of imaginary bells in my head.

Two days later I was still sick.

Never again, I said, and never again I did.

The end.

Oh, and as a postscript, Slimy is now a city council member in one of our lovely Twin Cities' suburbs and married with kids. Dizzy is still Dizzy. You know where I am.

27 comments:

Dr. Monkey said...

Oh how I wish I had been there. If only to cop a feel or steal a kiss from a drugged up Whiskey. I did acid abut 10 times and it was a different weird every time, not as funny as your time, nope, mine were just weird.

Imnotbenny said...

This post was awesome, lol.

You should totally do acid all the time for my amusement!

O.G. said...

That is an amazing story!

The one thing stranger than having lunch with a parent on acid would probably be having lunch with a parent on acid...if you know what I mean.

Anonymous said...

Funny post. Ok, here's a tidbit that could qualify as a coincidence of some sort.

June 1990. Eugene, Oregon. The Grateful Dead were in town to play Saturday and Sunday. Right before the Sunday concert, my buddy Bob and I scored some really clean awesome spectacular paper from this chick who was right next to us in the parking lot. That experience simply deconstructed each building block of my mind and soul. I am still in the process of putting it all back together.

Anyway, the next morning I ran into that same chick while getting ready to leave. I asked her where she was headed.

Shae said, "Rainbow Gathering in Minnesota."

diatribes and dish said...

I completely forgot about the Rainbow People! What a big deal that was. I was certain I was going to run into some naked hippies in the woods by my cabin. Never happened.

Sornie said...

Damn. This is the one time I wish I was a bit older. The early 90s seem so much more enlightened and fun that the late 90s.

Ria~ said...

Hilarious story. I love the fact that Slimy is now a city councilman...perfect.

Bubs said...

You know, cautionary tales aren't supposed to be so hilarious.

That was supposed to be cautionary and not inspirational, right?

TheHermanator said...

I can really relate to the "Southwestern thing", that mosiac effect, which turns out to be the "Rods and Cones" in your eyes?
Anyway, I always loved that look, and for several years thought the sidewalks in San Francisco and Palo Alto really had that pattern !
I was pretty much over my psychedelic phase before your experiment, but I think anyone who's tripped can relate to your funny tale.
Thanks for it, Herm

Whiskeymarie said...

Monkey- you were a brave (or stupid) man to try that more than once. Though, until I got sick it was pretty fun. Too bad you weren't there- in my messed-up 19 year-old state I probably would have given you at least a LITTLE sugar.

Imnotbenny- If I weren't so scared of drugs these days, I probably would do them for my entertainment as well.

O.G.- My Mom on acid would have been a very, very strange thing indeed since she was the type to get wasted off of one margarita.

Anon- That is hilarious. What a small freaking world. Though, coincidentally, may people from Duluth end up migrating to Oregon at some point. Hmm.

d&d- Be glad you avoided the naked hippies (shudders).

Sornie- While the early 90's were pretty much a fashion black hole, it sure was a hell of a lot of fun and the music was fantastic.

Ria- He was destined for politics, in my opinion. He seems to have all of the qualifications.

Wendy- Happy to give you a chuckle, gorgeous.

Bubs- I like to think of it as "cautiously entertaining", kind of like watching "Jackass".

Hermanator- I'm glad the whole "colors" thing wasn't just me. Glad you liked my little tale of going down the Timothy Leary road...

BallerinaToes said...

That's awesome. Although I may or may not have partaken in other illegal/illicet drugs...acid and ecstasy always scared the crap out of me, so I played mother hen to my friends while they were trippen.

wafelenbak said...

*giggling uncontrollably*
You almost had me sold on trying acid, until I got to the stomach cramps and the rampant farting. I already have enough of those problems WITHOUT drugs.

Dr Zibbs said...

I have a couple hysterical tripping stories but I don't dare put them on my blog. I'll tell you in person if we ever meet.

Lollie said...

Reading about your SBDs made me need to go to the bathroom - I'll be right back...

Anonymous said...

Nope, wasn't me!

My first experience with paper acid (was told it was called Timothy Leary Neo-American Church acid) was when I was a junior in high school. My best friend and I decided to go to the Dade County Youth Fair. We took the bus because I didn't know if I could drive after taking it. We ran into friends who thought it was best not to trip for the first time at a fair. Soooo, off we went with Joe driving us all over Miami n his convertible. With all the headlights and reflections off the water it was like being in a maze of shooting stars. We were all very bad back the. I am seriously surprised that I survived those years.

Boy, you sure do bring back my memories with your posts!! Biting teachers, forging signatures. topless waitress! Keep up the good work!

Patti

Anonymous said...

It was me, Renata1967 that requested you write about this story these past holidays. Thanks- it was just as entertaining as I knew it was going to be!!
Once while I was "tripping", I made the horrible mistake of looking at a mirror. OMG- nothing like seeing your own face melt like candle wax!! It was also fun to not actually eat my Apple Jack's, but to WATCH the little cereal bits swell-up with milk in what appeared to be ultra-fast time. I won't even say what those little cinnamon-thingy's on the cereal appeared to be, so let's just say that 1985 was the last time I ever ate that cereal!! I suck at drugs too!! ~ Renata1967

ekc said...

Thanks for the great post! I too am a child of the ABC after-school special (and a mother who was a nurse and had all sorts of scary drug stories from patients in the hospital where she worked) and have thus never tried an illegal drug - I strictly stick to the still-legal vino and vodka diet. But I love living vicariously through you and my other friends!

Anonymous said...

You are a riot!

"I was drugged-out, paranoid and farty..." I am still laughing my ass off over here. Had a similar experience on my 20th birthday. There was rain, running, jumping, gorillas, a good old fashioned county fair, pedophiles and lime popsicles. It was actually a blast so I figured, why mess up a good thing, right? "Never again", I said and so it was.

Whiskey, you're the big smile in my work-day. Thank you for that.

Jennifer and Sandi said...

Thats funny! Have fun with GWEN!!!!!!!!!!

Happy Friday!

- Jennifer

Grant Miller said...

You cannot play the triangle? That's a double entendre, right???

kirby said...

I love how your color fest was so era appropriate. If you dropped acid just a year or two ago, I wonder if you would have seen Provencal colors?

Aunt Snow said...

Hilarious!! I actually never did acid, but I sure remember an experience eating hash brownies and then riding the #1 Broadway local for what seemed like eons.....

gorillabuns said...

being that i'm paranoid naturally, all the drugs i've done make me a complete basket case.

Nature Girl said...

Well I'm glad you're here to tell the story because like you thought back then, I'm pretty sure I woulda died instantly the minute I tried anything! You crack me up!
Stacie

Hybrid Fat-n-Sassy said...

Oh Gawd that was funny!

Renaissance Woman said...

LOL...loved the post.

LegalMist said...

Whiskeymarie -- where are you? We are (im)patiently awaiting your report on the weekend with Gwen! We saw the photos on Gwen's site -- surely you have some ... photos of Gwen to share with us?

Or did Gwen knock you into the dumpster and close the lid, and you're never coming back?

Where are you, Whiskeymarie?!?