Today was a wonderful day at The Coughie Pot, the little mountain town marijuana dispensary in Eastern Oregon that I co-own. An early afternoon thunderstorm gave way to a decent spring day.

In walks a young lady. As is the law, I check her ID. Date of birth: 04/30/1999. Oh, snap, it’s her 21st birthday. Congrats, I tell her, while recalling that I was six weeks into dating my ex-wife around then, looking forward to an August date in Vegas to see Earth, Wind, & Fire.

Man, I’m old. Shit, I still have the EWF t-shirt from that show. My clothes are as old as she is.

“What can I get for your birthday today,” I ask as she scans our jars full of crystally buds. She seems new.

“Can you get me an eighth [ounce] of each?”

“No, because we have nine strains. I can only sell you an ounce, or eight eighths. How about you pick one you don’t want and I’ll get you an eighth of the rest?”

She agrees and strikes Grape Ape from the selection. Of course, because its THC percentage is 0.13 points below the Lavender next to it.

I weigh and package her variety pack. “That’ll be $164, please.” She pays, takes her flowers, and leaves.

Dèjá vu whoo hoo!

Just a couple hours later, two young ladies walk in. One I recognized from a previous visit. The other woman I did not recognize.

This is already odd, as this mountain town is quite out of the way. Our customers are usually veterans and older patients who live around the town of Baker City, a half hour away.

I carded them both. The first was born in 1997. As I ID the second, her date of birth is 04/30/1999. “Happy birthday,” I tell her.

She was noteworthy for more than her birthday, though. She had elaborate Native design tattoos on her thighs. Her hair was scraggy rivulets of blond dreadlocks. She wore what I guess happens if a fat man’s vest and a linen sheet mated, and it draped precariously over her enormous, fully emancipated breasts.

Thanks to coronavirus, I am wearing a bandana mask at this time. A barrier and a display case keep us six feet distant. I’m thinking, “eyes up, eyes up, eyes up,” as I take her order for three different grams of live resin. But, damn, that thing is going to fall off of her!

She and her friend pay and leave. Good for her to feel free to wear comfortable revealing clothing. I fully support her wardrobe choice… far more than it supported her! ?

The Payoff

I thought about how cool it is for those women to have grown up in Oregon. Medical marijuana has been legal their whole lives. Recreational marijuana has been legal since they were 16. And at age 21, they can take a road trip into the mountains as a rite of passage to their first legal marijuana shop.

When I turned 19, Idaho’s drinking age back in 1987 (a dozen years before these women were born), my buddies took me on a booze cruise road trip into the mountains, drinking at every bar along the way (Marty Moose was our sober driver). I puked repeatedly and don’t recall how I got home.

I had to drive down the mountain after work tonight to deposit hundreds of dollars in twenties in an ATM, because it’s pay day tomorrow and marijuana businesses don’t get to bank.

Next door to the ATM is a Taco Time. I go to drive thru and there’s a car already at the speaker. A truck and a car are parked away from the entrance.

I drive toward the speaker. As I get there, I realize the parked guys are actually in line; they were keeping the alleyway open to traffic, so I circle the block to queue behind them.

When I get to the speaker, I order a few extra tacos, because I just got paid and still have another day on the mountain. I’ll stash some tacos for tomorrow’s lunch.

When I get to the window, the worker hands me the bag of tacos and my drink.

“Hey, I still need to pay you,” I say, offering a twenty.

“It’s all good. The car ahead of you paid for your meal,” she replied.

Huh. That’s never happened to me before. And the guy in front of me was in a piece of shit late-80s sedan, so it had to be the guy in the truck.

Was he thanking me for going around the block? Was karma giving me a bonus for fulfilling two women’s birthday wishes?

I don’t know, but it was a great day for me today. Imma eat a ? and go to ?