My friend and I have traveled together a few times. We’re currently in a small chamber ensemble that performs mostly classical music and occasionally we have to drive a few hours to a performance. We both suffer from the occasional bout with ‘Trail mix onset IBS’, which often leaves our road trips interrupted for a veer off of the road to run screaming into an unsuspecting Walgreens like a scene out of Bridesmaids. (It’s happening! It’s HAPPENING !!!)
For a while we were in a band and provided Background vocals for a local recording artist. We signed on with him to do some studio sessions. This of course, turned into mostly gigging in bars or the occasional festival and getting 20 dollars. This was not the most lucrative engagement. We were, however, gifted with substantial opportunities to enjoy weed, which we politely declined. And yet, somehow; (perhaps due to being in the same room with 3-5 guitarists and drummers openly smoking pipes!) we were usually drawn with tractor beams to the Taco Bell drive through on the way home from band practice. I guess second-hand high IS a thing after all.
To be clear, we always just -say- NO. Which is why we were confident that we’d never appear to be doing otherwise. But this was misplaced confidence:
Our next trip we were headed to sunny LA! Now there is NO way we are hitting that many Walgreens cross-country. Route 66 doesn’t need our overactive colons. However, the plane trip was looking to be such a BORE with zero good in-flight movies. Besides, we both needed a nap! Always COPIOUSLY prepared, my mate had some Xanax in her possession. Sweet! but we needed to split it in half so we could both have a blissful rest, and in doing so, we created a sort of white granular substance. We didn’t want to waste ANY amount of our magic sleeping dust, so we dipped our pinkies into the ziplock bag that the Xanax was stored in, to make sure we left no portion unused.
It was then that my friend remembered that her doctor had advised her to use vaseline or Aquaphor to line her mucus membranes before boarding the flight. Apparently, smearing it inside your nose can trap microscopic bacteria and germs to help keep you from getting sick.
So in an effort to stave off airborne illness, we squeezed Aquaphor on our fingers and stuck them in our nostrils whilst licking a white powdery substance off of our pinky fingers. We were so immersed in securing our rest and immune system function, that we didn’t notice the stares of onlookers. Because we are like virtuous doves, law-abiding citizens, and not to mention somewhat green when it comes to being inconspicuous with drug paraphernalia; it never occurred to us that we appeared to be openly making the flight interesting for ourselves in other ways. But it was too late. We were busted with Xanax on our pinkies and Aquaphor -laden digits in our sneezers. “Security! Gate 4! Security, Gate 4! We have two adult females, trying to appear wide-eyed and unsuspicious while attempting to persuade us of their innocence by showing us pictures of their children!”
There’s no way to adequately describe how to convince law enforcement officers that you are not high, and there is sincerely Aquaphor in your nose because YOUR DOCTOR TOLD YOU TO!!!! after you’ve already taken a medicine meant to help you relax…a lot.
Fortunately, they still let us on the plane, and we were able to sleep our way to the west coast.
Like Dharma and Greg 