Shroomage

Circa Bellum posted about his experiences with psychedelic mushrooms, back in his younger days; reading it brought back some heady memories, I can tell you. I remember with all the clarity of daylight my first experiences with organic hallucinogens. As hallucinogens go - and I'm not good with most of 'em - shrooms are the primo shit. No nasty chemical side-effects, and you're done in six hours or so. Best of all possible worlds, if you're a fucking druggie.

During my freshman year of college, I lived in an all-female dormitory, as befitted my station in life. In the spring of the year, I dated a hippie; real good-looking guy, but with a shade too much fondness for Che Guevara posters and tie-dyes for my long-term taste. Plus, on closer inspection, he smelt of ass and pit. Needless to say, this relationship was short-lived. But I digress.

One fine Saturday evening, Hippie shows up with a bag of shrooms. His also-hippie roommate was coming over with his intensely-hippiefied ultra-Nazi-vegan girlfriend, and we were going to split the bag four ways before going to a party at an apartment complex a few blocks away. We planned to crunch 'em up manual-like, by mouth, none of this labor-intensive tea stuff, and smoke a bowl afterwards, to "clear the taste" from our delicate hippie palates.

Hippie boyfriend, hippie roommate, and hippie girlfriend were firmly ensconced in my dorm room in short order, and we followed the general plan. I choked down my portion of the shrooms, fighting the urge to gag and thinking mostly about the animal shit the nasty things grew in, and hoping, unenthusiastically, they'd been washed before packaging. The Dead played Sugar Magnolia on the boombox - bootleg cassette, of course, Alpine 76. Incense curled over our heads as we smoked our bowl and listened to hippie girlfriend's lecture about the evils of organ meats.

Finally, we left for the party. Now, to my recollection, calling this gathering an actual "party" was a major stretch - twenty or so hippies laying around on pillows, beanbags and futons, by candlelight, toking on a hookah, does not a "party" make. The scene was only slightly more animated than an opium den, but they had food and beer and Jimi Hendrix music. My hippie boyfriend and I settled on a futon in the corner, rolled a joint, and commenced to socializing.

The next thing I knew I was giggling. Stinky hippies were funny. Ha! That goth-looking girl over there is getting yelled at by vegan-Nazi hippie girlfriend for eating a double bacon cheeseburger in front of her! Ha ha! Look at that stoned dude try to find his lighter! Ha ha ha! Wow - white guys with dreadlocks are soo silly! Ha ha ha ha ha! And look at the little faces on the carpet fibers! Hilarious! Ha ha haha hah ha ha ha ha...

I couldn't stop. I got my gigglebox turned over, in the worst sort of way. The mostly-quiet hippie conclave found this behavior annoying, until they were informed that we were shrooming, after which I was given a wide berth and lots of encouraging smiles. One thing you can say for hippies - they're tolerant, kindly, even, towards those who are visibly in an altered state.

I laid there and laughed my ass off, occasionally raising my head to point at someone and mutter incoherently about beaver pelts before launching into renewed peals of merriment, for five hours. When it was time to go home, my hippie escort practically had to carry me to the car; I was weak from laughing so hard and had no equilibrium, no sea legs, with my shroom trip. The walk from the apartment to the parking lot was enough to make me light-headed and seasick; I had to stop behind our ride, to bend over and vomit between uncontrollable spurts of giggling. My hippie date was, to his credit, a very understanding young gentleman; people sometimes puke from drugs, and he was prepared for it. Any stoner worth his salt can handle a puking date.

As I stood there, hunched over and gagging up chunks onto the asphalt, a couple of swaggering frat-boys drifted by, towards the building. At the sight of us, the fat one looked pointedly at me, wrinkled up his nose at the stench, and asked, in a loud voice, "Damn...what'd she have for dinner?"

Challenged, I stood up straight, wiped the barf-strings off my chin, and smiled gaily through the flecks of used fungus on my incisors. "Mushrooms!" I managed to state, before cracking myself completely up and dissolving into the passenger's seat.

At that moment, I thought it was the funniest thing I'd ever said.

I don't do hallucinogens any more. Even shrooms. It's a rule.

Posted by Queenie at January 30, 2005 12:18 AM