One From The Vaults

INTERNATIONAL ROPE SHORTAGE!

Officials Somberly Consider Legalizing Pot In Hopes Of Stemming Crisis

In my travels and daily activities I will, on occasion, encounter people who are staunch supporters of legalizing marijuana. When I do meet these people it is usually at parties where many a joint is being passed around and, get ready to be shocked into shitting your pants, these people are high when I meet them. You can change your pants now. You can tell which people I am talking about if you just bring up the topic of legalization around a bunch of pot smokers. They’re the ones who cough uncontrollably for a moment or two like they’ve just been asked to take stage and they take stage and have no qualms about launching into a 30-minute tirade on the virtues of weed.

Now, don’t misunderstand what I am about to say. Really, I am in favor of legalizing pot because over time it has demonstrated more benefits than drawbacks. The way I see it, tobacco and alcohol have demonstrated more drawbacks than benefits, and yet those are drugs which society has deemed safe enough to be legal. So why not make pot legal? I believe I know the answer to this question now and it came to me over a number of years of listening to these soapbox speakers. It’s the fucking legalization activists themselves who are keeping pot from being deemed perfectly safe from a legal standpoint.

I mean have you ever really listened to somebody who is really, really high try to make a sound argument as to why he should be allowed to enjoy mary-jane without the man coming to bust him? Try to piece together a coherent sentence or two. Sadly, these are the same kinds of arguments that are thrown around at pot rallies too. Why? Because everybody is fucking high!

Dude, let’s like totally rally to extol the virtues of weed!

Sounds good. How do you propose we do that?

Let’s like go to the Legislature and get totally fucked up. That’ll show them!

Keep thinking that, hippy.

And the worst, the absolutely fucking worst reason why marijuana should be brought to the realm of legal acceptability in society has to be the fact that hemp is capable of producing a mighty fine rope. That’s right, you heard it straight from the horse’s ass, you can make some great rope from hemp cord. Wow. And you know what else? That’s considered one of the best virtues of weed. Meanwhile, the person who is most likely spewing on and on about how pivotal rope is to the stability of the free world is Tommy Chong high. That’s really fucking high.

That’s right, dude. You can like totally make some great rope out of hemp, man.

Okay, so you readers out there must be dumbfounded like me by a statement like this. I mean, it’s not so much the fact that “some great rope” can be made out of hemp. That has, indeed, been demonstrated in the past and I’m sure they still make lots of great rope out of hemp in parts of the world where the growth of cannibis is not so tightly scrutinized by the government. What blows my fucking mind more than the puffs of smoke being blasted into my face during the tirade is the fact that the world must be in some sort of rope crisis if we have to consider the legalization of pot. When the hell did this happen and why has CNN not informed me of this international rope shortage?

The only way to find out just how devastated the rope industry is might just require me to take a trip of the vehicular variety to the local hardware store. I mean, wow, we are standing on the precipice of legalizing fucking cannibis to secure a more stable and readily abundant source for rope. I bet there must be the fucking apocalypse outside with all that shit being left untied.

Stay here, I’ll be right back. I’m going to scope the crisis out for myself.

[intermission]

Okay, I’m back. I sped to the hardware store like a bat out of hell. I tell you. I was expecting to have to be able to beat back hordes of shit-grinning fucktards who want to buy all the rope before me. So I asked the first store clerk I saw if I was in time to be able to secure myself some rope, precious rope. I was exasperated, frantic. He could see the manic look in my eye. And you know what he did?

He fucking laughed at me. He laughed and laughed and then he stopped to catch his breath before he laughed some more. Then he directed me to an area of the store where there were spools, I shit you not, of rope. Glorious rope on, honest to god, spools! There were all kinds of rope to be had and not one whacked out rope-crazed crack whore tried to beat me down to get at the prize. You can change your pants again. The apocalypse of ropedom was just a figment of the pro-legalization movement’s collective imagination. There was rope. There was even steel cable available. And chains, too! Fucking chains! I had to change my pants to be quite honest.

So, what’s the message behind this bullshit satirical article? The message is this: Potheads, our rope situation is good. Technology has us set for all of our tying-shit-up needs. It even has us set for all of our kinky bondage freaky sex needs as well. So what the fuck?

I would much rather you argue your point honestly. For instance, you might want to mention that the primary active substance in marijuana, THC, gets you totally high, man. At least you would be more true to your own reasons for wanting to see weed made readily legal. Tell me how it improves diminished appetites, reduces nausea in chemotherapy patients, or to treat glaucoma. At least these are qualities an average guy like me can look at and think: wow, this shit can’t be all that bad after all.

This whole rope approach to your arguments is moot. I saw so much fucking rope in that one hardware store that I’m sure the rope supply in many of the other hardware stores around town is healthy as well. If anything, there’s too much fucking rope! Somebody oughta make that shit illegal! Too much fucking rope and not enough shit to tie down with it! I’m like totally starting a petition, dude. Sign your name down below, you fucking hippies.