Wednesday, March 31, 2004

this is an old email from my former housemate. This is so funny...

Hey Brendan
Thought I'd better email you and let you know why the
apartment (including your room) are in such "array".
Thurs. night about 11:30, I'm watching porn in my room and
I open up a condom so as not to starch my sheets. As I
tear open the wrapper of what's supposed to be a black,
lubed condom I get a finger full of white powder and a
grey looking rubbery thing - post 9/11Panic, put it back in
the wrapper and double plastic bag it...Wait, maybe it's
just a talced nonlubed condom in the wrong wrapper. I go
to the Lifestyles website to see if such a thing exists, it
doesn't. Panic again! Call 911, Wait. I can't, this
place is Pot Central. It's not just the bong, dug out,
growlight, in your room which would get a thorough
going over as well as the rest of the building in the event
that the white powder turned out to be something, it's
the whole apartment. Sticks, stems, seeds and other
droppings all over the rug, a coffee table with at least
$20 worth of pot and pot by-products trapped in, on and
around it, lots of whatevers handy paraphernalia, etc,
etc. See, the CDC doesn't come to your door for the
suspect white powder, the cops do, and once you let them
in....

So I spent the next 12 hours cleaning up. First I went
through the apartment on my hands and knees picking stems
and seeds out of the carpet. Then I gathered together all
the paraphernalia. Did a quick clean around the computer
desk and in the horticulture closet Spent over 2 hours
just cleaning off the coffee table glass and scraping out
the residue, pot and byproducts that got trapped in and
around the glass. Next I cleaned up the kitchen and
bathroom (more stuff in both places). Next vacuum, vacuum,
vacuum and one more time around the entire carpet on my
hands and knees.

Finally I call Ray at about 11:30 Fri. morning to see if he
can come by and hold all this stuff and the pot for a day
or two. He says he's at work and won't be off til Sat AM.
My plan is to put the pot and paraphernalia elsewhere, call
Lifestyles, see what they say and if they say call 911,
can finally do so without fear of running into a zealous
cop and possibly jail...this sucks, I'm exhausted!
As a long shot, Hail Mary I go over to the Catbox to look
for Kevin. Long story short he helps me out. I go home
and clean for another 2 hours then call Lifestyles.

According to Lifestyles the powder is most likely just a
pharmaceutical dusting of corn starch and magnesium oxide
and the condom probably got missed during the lube process.
They tell me to mail it back to them and they'll check it
out. before I mail it I call poison control, the health
department and 911...nobody seems too concerned. Whew!

A year ago you could call this raging paranoia but since
9/11 the world has become a much scarier place and the
country has become much more of a police state. Your
paraphernalia is resting comfortably in the horticulture
closet and your pot is back in the freezer.

But all this brings up a pretty serious situation for me
and for you for that matter. At Hazel Ave for at least
most of the time all drug activity was confined to your
room, bong safely in its tube, etc. Here the entire
apartment seems to be either paraphernalia(push pins,
pieces of aluminum foil, guitar string ends etc), or ash
trays (rugs, tables glasses, etc).

About 2 weeks ago as you were going out the door to Sam's
Place I got a really bad arrhythm and was about to call
911, fortunately the episode subsided after about a minute.
It dawns on me now, thank God I didn't call 911 we both
could have wound up in jail. You probably haven't taken
many if any 911 rides but I have. And at least 90% of the
time the cops show up before the paramedics. In my
experience(and I've heard horror stories from others) most
of these cops are surly and belligerent and would just love
to happen to look down and see some seed or stems...if they
can't bust heads at least they bust gasping heart patients!

I guess my point here is to ask you to contain the pot and
paraphernalia to your room(the other morning I got up and
found the bong proudly displayed in the kitchen window -
remember, Mr. Bishop HATES us!)

The idea that I can't call 911 without first thoroughly
cleaning up the apartment scares the hell out of me. In a
real cardiac emergency cleaning wouldn't even be an option.

We can talk about this when we see each other again but I
think this is a very real concern. I don't think it's too
much to ask that common space(including the fridge and
freezer) remain "clean", and legal.

Oh yeah, I put Laura's $20 worth back in with the rest of
yours, I think at this point it would be more than a little
hypocritical to buy it...but thanks for remembering and
leaving it out for me.