trunk

Dear Diary,
I have something to confess and it’s kind of major. I tried grass last summer (when i was but 13) in the trunk of my cousin Joan’s Plymouth. Okay, her car doesn’t really have a trunk, but I was in that open part in the back where you store stuff. No one was sitting in the back seat, but Joan is in high school and she said she didn’t want to be seen smoking ” weed grass” in the parking lot of the Java Dome with a middle schooler in her car. So she made me crouch like a tiger for around an hour so that no one would see me. Then she and Rick Chicken’s lab partner, Bruce Nani, smoked marijuana out of something that she kept calling “a sweet glass piece.” I asked if I could try some because I wanted to brag to Blue Robin about it later, but they laughed at me and Joan said, “Dream on, Deb Dorkster.” I used to hate it when people called me that. So I guess I didn’t technically try grass, but I sure as hell inhaled A LOT of second-hand smoke.

Then Joan and Bruce started laughing really hard at this upturned shopping cart for no reason, so I joined in in hopes that they’d see I, too, could be marginally popular one day (if only they could see me now!)* Joan suddenly stopped laughing and pulled off her sneaker and started smacking it against her forehead, which made Bruce laugh harder, so then I laughed harder too, at which point Joan flung open her car door, yanked open the trunk, pulled me out by my carcass and scrotum-shaped knapsack and told me to beat it.

“Beat it!” she roared. “You are such a dork! Why are you laughing? You didn’t even smoke any drugs!”

I rolled my eyes and tidied my dewy mop of russet-colored ringlets. “Um, maybe I’m laughing because I’m HIGH?! It’s called second-hand smoke, Joan. I’m stoned as hell!”

Joan looked at me like I was a pile of diarrhea. It was at this point that I knew I had a problem. Mom wouldn’t be happy to hear about it, so I knew that it had to be my secret. I was a drug addict. “I’m a drug addict,” I announced.
“Go home, Deb.” Joan commanded.

“Great,” I said (sarcastically). “First you hook me, then you ditch me. You said that if I did your laundry for a month that I could hang out with you today. Little did I know what I was in for! Real nice, Joan.” And with that, I flounced home.
That was one year ago today. There have been several occasions when I ate not one but two pieces of my mom’s rhubarb torte (lingering effects of the munchies), but for the most part, I’ve stayed clean. I’ve stayed strong. I haven’t gone near the stuff since then. Or Joan, for that matter.

Bruce told Rick Chicken that he fingered her under the bleachers. I’m not sure what that means, but I’m sure it involves drugs and I know that I should reach out and try to help her. She may be a mega-jerk, but she is family. And a Webster NEVER turns their back on a family member (unless popularity is at stake).
Keeping it real (as usual),
Deb

*I know that they’re not all that popular because Rick Chicken told Jennifer that he makes Bruce do all their work in their bio lab and that Joan was kind of a dork but because she “always has grass” he sometimes “invites her to parties.”