Don’t eat your children’s cupcakes
They might have a secret ingredient.
A few months back on a regular Tuesday morning, I was busy working from home on my computer. A familiar routine for so many of us these days.
It was around 9am and my son, of 23, was about to leave the house to go to work. He sometimes interrupts me when I am giving a class online, to say goodbye, with a wave unless it is something important. This particular morning, however, he had brought me a treat! He took out a few cakes from a paper bag from the bakery and placed them on the table near me. I thanked him.
“Oh yummy” I said to my student, “my son has just given me two chocolate muffins”.
I use headphones when I am giving a lesson, so I can hear my students better. That morning I hadn’t taken them off to listen to my son but I was pretty sure I had got the gist of what he was saying as he held up the squashed cake. In my mind he had said something like.
“This one got squashed but it is okay”. He didn’t insist that I take off the headphones, so I didn’t think he had said anything too important.
He left and I continued with my lesson.
About half an hour later I decided to eat one of the cakes for breakfast. It was amazing. Huge chocolate chips. It wasn’t too big, so I didn’t feel too guilty. After my lesson I felt great. My students and I often laugh quite a lot, so I hadn’t really noticed anything at this point.
My lesson finished at 10 am and I took a quick look at Twitter, which is always a mistake because, if you are not careful, you can lose hours, if not days, of your life there. I saw an article about Elon Musk launching another strand of satellites into the heavens. I got rather involved in the post and started to think about a chapter in the Bible regarding sending fire to earth in full view of men, then I started looking up Bible scriptures. This one in particular.
“And it performed great signs, even causing fire to come down from heaven to the earth in full view of the people.”
Rev: 13:13
It suddenly dawned on me that something was amiss. Why else would I make an association with Elon’s rockets and Bible scripture and why was I feeling so euphoric all of a sudden and yet like I was going to die at the same time!
My heart started to race uncontrollably and my blood pressure dropped very quickly. I felt like my blood had leaked out of my feet. Was it a panic attack induced by Elon’s Rockets? (ooeer!)
Was I having a stroke?
I began to feel dizzy and I was contemplating calling an ambulance.
At this point my heart started to beat very fast. I got up and staggered to get my oximeter out of the drawer to check my heart rate.
150 beats per minute!
‘Okay’ I thought, ‘So that is pretty fast’.
Even for me that was fast. My normal rate is about 80/90 but this was nearly double and I hadn’t been doing anything yet I felt like I had just run a marathon!
So, what could it be? I thought again about calling an ambulance. I got up and went to the bathroom to check my colour in the mirror. It was fine. No blue lips or facial drooping and my oxygen was good according to the oximeter, I didn’t have any chest pains either.
So what the hell was it?
Suddenly it came to me!
My son had been with friends earlier in the week and one of them had made some ‘brownies’ — regular and ‘irregular’ or rather brownies with a kick. Yes, it was now looking highly likely that the delicious chocolate chip brownie I had just consumed, had enough marijuana in it to comatose a young adult.
The thought of calling an ambulance now didn’t seem like such a great idea. I could imagine them — racing down the road sirens blazing, entering the apartment block and racing up the stairs — only to find that I was as high as a kite.
I could just imagine the neighbours hanging over their verandas and all the customers in the coffee shop below…!
I had to call my son and confirm my suspicions — One time I got high just from cutting a piece of cheese with the same knife that somebody had used to cut a hash cake at a party! On that day I thought I was having a stroke too, but this was worse — much worse.
My son didn’t answer his phone and my heart was not slowing down. What was I going to do?
“Don’t panic,” I said to myself, I can be pretty rational at times like these. I decided that maybe drinking a lot of water and going for a walk would be a good idea. I went to the bathroom mirror and checked my vitals yet again. All seemed fine — except for the heavy metal band playing in my chest.
My phone rang — it was my son!
I asked him if the cakes were laced. He said that he had told me that they were (from then on I make a point of making eye contact and listening intently to what he says). He asked if I had eaten both. I only ate the one — but it was the laced one it seems. He then told me to get a glass of water and grind pepper into it then drink the water and chew on the ground pepper. This would kill the ‘high’
Tips on how to reduce that high and paranoia in this link: https://www.healthline.com/health/how-to-stop-being-high#eat
No tea or coffee either — damn. I really fancied a cup of tea.
I focused on drinking the water and chewing the peppercorns, I was feeling more assured now. At least I knew I wasn’t having a stroke or a heart attack!
All my perception of time was now altered. Ten minutes felt like an hour. I sat down at the computer again and got lost in my research about Elon Musk. Some of my greatest revelations have come to me when I have been stoned — well, they seem like revelations at the time.
I decided to write a satirical article on Medium called “Imperator of Mars”, at least it took my mind off my pounding heartbeat. I found lots of interesting information about Mr Musk, his suspicious Mars project and vast satellite network. I should have known what was happening as soon as I had started associating rockets with Bible scriptures, even though in my younger years I did make some major biblical breakthroughs when I was high. I read the bible front to back in English and in Portuguese! (but that is another story you can read here)
After that I was till able to give my 11am lesson! :)
Is Cannabis safe?
Research shows that the effects from edibles take up to about 1 hour to kick in but can last for 6 or more hours. In contrast, the effects of smoking or vaping THC tend to last 1–4 hours. I swear that I still felt the effect the next day!
If you suffer from any heart problems you may want to tread carefully. There is a lot of research to indicate that cannabis can affect people in a very negative way if they have cardiovascular disorders.
The most important thing in a situation like this, is to remain as calm as you can and don’t forget to make sure you listen to your kids!!
Some interesting articles on Cannabis safety.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5542986/
