The Marijuana Cigarette Story

1983

A True Story

Written 1/2019 701 Words* #111 By Howard Yasgar

Now that Marijuana is getting closer to being legal in Florida, I don’t mind telling this true story.

It was in 1983, and I was a bachelor living in a North-West Miami apartment complex.

It was a Sunday afternoon, and I Had a couple of my good friends staying over as my guests.

One of them was my good friend Bob Martinez. Bob was around my age, and he was originally from Puerto Rico, but was now living in Orlando Florida , and making his living selling picture frames and other items to Florida gift shops.

Whenever Bob was making his sales calls in the Miami area, he stayed at my apartment with me.

I had one guest bedroom, with twin beds, and I was always happy to have someone as company.

The other guest I had on that Sunday morning was one of my employe’s, his name was Miguel Marquez .

Miguel was a Cuban refugee who had escaped from Cuba in 1963, and upon arriving in Miami, he had come to work for me, and we had become good friends.

My friend Miguel, always claimed he was a Cuban hillbilly, however, I always found him to have a high degree of innate intelligence, and not only that, my friend Miguel, was a real humorous comedian, he had the ability to make one-line jokes about everything and anything.

On this Sunday morning, we were all sitting around my kitchen table talking, when Bob produced a Marijuana cigarette, the type that was twisted on both ends.

He laid it on the table as Miguel and I stared at it.

I certainly knew what it was, and so did Miguel, but neither one of us had ever smoked a marijuana cigarette.

My personal reason for not smoking Marijuana, was because I had always heard about the crazy things that people did, after smoking it, so that was the reason always avoided it.

My friend Miguel also had his own strong opinion about not smoking Marijuana.

Miguel picked up the cigarette, and he studied it closely.

Miguel said, “You know this stuff is all bullshit, the things they say that happen to you when you smoke marijuana, I think the people are just exaggerating and making it all up.

Bob reached over, took the cigarette from Miguel and lit it up.

He took a deep drag and passed it back to Miguel.

Miguel took a puff, coughed, took another puff and passed the cigarette to me, so I took a puff and handed it back to Bob.

Miguel looked all around the table and said, “You see, nothing happens”.

Bob got up, taking the cigarette with him, and excused himself to go to the bathroom.

Then Miguel got up, and I watched as he walked into my guest bedroom.

After a few seconds Miguel appeared standing in the guest bedroom doorway.

In a very serious tone, Miguel asked “How many Bob Martinez’s are sleeping here?

Only one I replied, why do you ask?

Miguel said, because there are two Bob Martinez’s sleeping in the bedroom right now, and there is no room for me.

Just as Miguel said that Bob came out of the bathroom.

As we had nothing better to do, he said, “How about we go get a Pizza for lunch”?

It sounded like a good idea so we all went downstairs into the parking lot, and got into Bob’s beat up 1979

Chevrolet that was parked there.

Miguel got into the back seat and I sat in the passenger seat.

As Bob drove down Miami’s 36 Street to the local Pizza Hut, I was annoyed by my cowboy boots constantly rubbing against my legs. It was extremely irritating and annoying me, so I kept reaching down to push the boots away from rubbing against my legs.

It got so irritating that as I sat there, I vowed that I would never buy cowboy boots again.

When we got to the Pizza Hut restaurant, I got out of the car, that’s when I realized I wasn’t wearing cowboy boots, and I have never tried Marijuana again.