With weather conditions finally feeling like summer, there’s nothing better than leaving the busy, sexually-arousing confines of the urban city and venturing out into the woods with nothing more a sleeping bag, some hot dogs and some black-market DDT.
I thoroughly enjoy my annual camping rituals: sitting around the fire, drinking a couple cold ones with a friend; “accidentally” pushing my friend into the fire when a hungry black bear charges us because, let’s face it, he’s probably a faster runner than me.
Although I’ve lost a few buddies to the dangers of the forest, I’ve never stopped my woodland pilgrimages.
So I feel compelled to remind you, whatever your name is, that travelling into areas where you’ll be unable to play “Words with Friends” is serious business.
No one knows this better than the folks at the U.S. Forest Service, who — in addition to reminding you to follow basic advice such as sealing food containers in order to ward off unwelcome wildlife — are now asking citizens to beware of weed in the woods.
That’s right: marijuana growing operations are out there, according to a short article posted on the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest website.
The article states that these grow operations “pose significant threats to forest visitors.” Furthermore, if you encounter such an operation, the article states you should “back out immediately” because the growers are “extremely dangerous people.”
Of course, given that these people are tending to massive amounts of Mary Jane, one imagines them to more likely be “extremely hungry people” who, if encountered, would be inclined to ask you if you wanted one of their wasabi-covered brownies.
The article goes on to list signs of marijuana-growing activity, including but not limited to:
- A seriously dank skunk smell, yo
- The sounds of Bob Marley or Afroman emanating from the treeline
- Voices coming from unusual places, such as from a squirrel or deep inside your head
- People standing along roads without vehicles present, playing hackysack, singing songs and rollin’ fatties
- The presence of Snoop Dogg
So as you can see, the U.S. Forest Service must have a point when they warn you of the dangers you may face.
God only knows what would happen if a well-placed lightning strike ignited one of these fields into a massive forest fire that brave smokejumpers would be required to battle:
Lead smokejumper talking to men before jump: “Alright men, let’s saddle up and hold hands! I never told you boys before, but you’re like family to me! We don’t even need parachutes! Our love for one another will float us to the ground like so many pieces of delicate cotton!”
So as you can see, this is serious business because marijuana is seriously bad. We’ve all been taught it.
Even the baby-boomer generation of our parents has been taught this.
When my dad was a child, he and the other children at his school were forced to watch a video in which several men smoked marijuana and all kinds of terrible crap happened to them.
One man thought he was — this is true — a tangerine, another thought he’d become a black puma, and a third man drove his car off a cliff.
As you can imagine, this left my dad and the other children absolutely stunned. They couldn’t believe such a potent form of weed existed, and if it did, they wanted to know where they could obtain it.
I don’t know if the forest contains such a powerful herb, and even if I did, I would be legally obligated to avoid mentioning it here.
Anyway, my point is to remind you to keep an eye, an ear, and a finely-tuned nostril open as you camp this summer. Because the next time you awaken to a dense morning fog, you might just have the munchies.
