Dope-Dealing Potheads

My 15 yr old son and a few of his friends have a little “hideout”, if you will. It’s a secluded spot in the forest in front of their school that they discovered at the beginning of the school year. My son, being the adventurer that he is, found it to be a perfect building location for their own rudimentary and primitive hangout. Over the months they’ve made it their own, complete with a rocking chair, a bean bag, and even a couch that turns into a bed. Now, where I come from that sounds like the perfect make-out spot and….the perfect smoking spot (whatever your preference) and I’m sure many of you were thinking the same thing.

I mean, let’s be realistic here, unless you grew up in a little glass bubble, you’ve probably seen, heard and done worse than your own children will or have done.  And being a young parent or an older parent has nothing to do with it.  See, there’s one thing about my parenting philosophy; I trust my kids…..but I don’t trust them. In other words, I don’t sit here and pretend to think that my kids are such wonderful children that they would never engage in questionable behaviors or illegal acts for that matter.  And unfortunately, I think too many parents make this mistake.  Too many parents choose to be ignorant, choose to put blinders on and not see, hear or smell for that matter, and too many parents choose to not know what’s going on in their children’s lives.

Am I talking about being nosy??  Heck yeah I’m talking about being nosy!

In my house there is no such thing as “privacy”. That’s right! It’s my house, my rules buddy. I check computers, I check chat histories, I check emails, I tell my kids to bring down Facebook updates I find inappropriate, bedroom doors are not to be locked in my house unless you’re getting dressed after showering and I don’t accept “I’m gonna hang out with my friends.” I want to know WHO your friends are, what their names are, their phone numbers, where they live, introduce them to me, and while we’re at it, I’d like to talk to his/her parents.  When I first started dropping off my oldest son at the mall to “hang out” (which I honestly NEVER thought I would allow) I didn’t send him off with a “Have fun!”  Instead, I sat there, in front of the mall and re-lectured him on the consequences of stealing (and I’m not just referring to consequences with the cops).  Hey, I hope my kids understand right from wrong, but there is no harm in reviewing the basics on a regular basis since they can easily be forgotten under certain circumstances.

Soooooo, you can bet that every time I pick up my son from school, and I know he’s been hanging out at his hideout, I’m scanning his eyes and smelling him up as he leans in to give me a kiss “hello”.

Now, my son has told me that there are some pot heads that hang out in the forest, and that he and his buddies sometimes have to go on these secret missions in order to sneak into their hideout in such a way that the potheads won’t discover it and take over. So far, it seems to have worked out quite well for them.

A week ago, though, something out of the ordinary occurred.  I picked up my son at the usual spot.  I waited while he made his way out of the forest and came jogging over to the car.  He got in and we exchanged our customary kiss, with me taking in a whiff of his odor and a quick look in his eyes and an “how was school?” dialogue prompt.  Instead of the usual, “fine, blah blah blah, something about a stupid teacher, and crappy lunch, and I bombed/pawned this test” he tells me, “So yeah, today I almost got jumped for not buying weed.”  I looked at him quizzically and in my head thought “WTF?”.  Instinctively, the ghetto side of me starts to crawl out of her cave to listen and stands ready to pounce on whoever tries to fuck with my boy as soon as she’s given the go-ahead.

He proceeds to tell me that his little gang of guy friends had gone into the forest and he (my son) decided to play an impromptu prank on his buddies by walking in a different direction and hiding. The plan was that they would realize he was missing and start looking for him, whereupon he would jump out and scare them when they came close to his hiding spot. While waiting for them to return looking for him, he busies himself with a text conversation.  Then he hears voices.  He prepares to scare his buddies but quickly realizes that the voices he’s overhearing are not those of his friends, and rather the voices of the potheads. As discreetly as possible, he comes out of his hiding spot, pretending to be engrossed in a text conversation so as to not arouse their attention. This, however, was to no avail.  Suddenly, my son finds himself confronted by four older teen boys high as kites. (My ghetto side is now completely out of her cave listening intently.)

“Hey man, your friends said you have the money for the weed.” My son, trying to keep his composure, informed them that he wasn’t interested. “Hell no!  You better pay up man! Wheres the money at? Where’s your wallet?” Hoping to be rid of them, my son told them that he didn’t have his wallet on him; that it was in his backpack back at the school. “Well let’s go man!  I want my money and you’re gonna pay up!”  Trying not to stumble over his words too much and to appear as composed as possible my son insisted that he wasn’t interested in purchasing any weed.  Finally, one of the guys says, “Forget it man, let’s go.” With a little more insistence, the ring leader gives in and the four of them walked away leaving my son to run to his hideout and share what had just happened with his buddies.

Mind you, as my son is telling me this story, my blood is curdling and my stomach is knotting. My pulse is racing and my ghetto side is telling me to make a u-turn and go into that damn forest to find those SOB’s and do I don’t know what to them with my 5 feet, 3 inches and all.  It’s one thing to have your friends try to peer pressure you into smoking pot, but it’s a completely different story when four, older, dope dealing pot heads are trying to intimidate my son into buying pot.

Fortunately though, today I have a much stronger logical side that’s capable of dominating my ghetto side and I quickly convinced myself that there was nothing I was going to be able to do.  No, not even set up my own civilian drug bust, for as thrilling as that would be. Instead, I had to take a deep breath and tell my son, “There’s a girl rule that says that you should never find yourself alone.  You guys need to apply that girl rule with the forest.  You need to make sure that you’re never alone walking around in there.  You could fall, hit your head on a rock and go unconscious and no one would know.  Or, in this case, those guys could have beat the shit out you, robbed you of your money and phone, and no one would have known.”

I know this won’t be the last time I feel the incessant need to make my boys’ problems go away or solve their problems, or even kick someone’s ass, but I have to face the fact that I can’t and even if I could, it wouldn’t be doing my boys any good.

“You must have been nervous as hell.”  I said to him.

“No, actually I wasn’t that nervous.  I was just trying to make sure I chose the right words so the situation didn’t get any worse.”

Sigh.

Smile.

There’s something about the feeling of pride you get as a parent…it’s just simply indescribable.

Peace Out!

-Natasha Olivera

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