A. Blinken….. I smoke pot. I do this because I need to relax, and because of what pot doesn’t: it doesn’t make me go from drug to drug like prescription drugs; it doesn’t make me old before my time, toothless and crazy like meth; it doesn’t make me stupid, careless and murderous like alcohol. Most of you know I have my own little business, and thanks to your patronage, I do well enough by local standards. The other day, though, I got the chance to get on with a company doing some state contract work; I did some work for the site director and he told me how badly they needed someone local with my skills, would I apply? I took an application packet, and after an hour of filling in little boxes, came to this note at the very end: "successful applicants must pass a drug screen and employees are randomly tested". Reading that, a strange, icy finger entered my bowels. A drug test, for the work I do? I don’t drive truck, I don’t work with explosives, I’m not a brain surgeon, and anyway, I don’t go to work stoned. I would have to stop using pot to take this job. There was a larger problem. If you are a speed freak you can quit for a couple of days and pass a drug test; alcoholics have it even easier, but we heinous pot-heads have to wait weeks to pee clear. I did what I always do when I have a dilemma too big for my pea brain, I bought some brandy and a pecan pie and headed up canyon to see Granny Wise. The farther up the steep, slick, rocky road I went, the smaller and more joyous the creek got, the more flint and granite the bedrock became, the more comfortable I felt. I parked in Granny’s yard; the trail of smoke from the chimney and yellow light from the cabin windows lofted my spirits; at least I wasn’t whiney when Granny answered my knock: "government worker or thief?" I said "relative, it’s me, Granny." She let me in; she was baking a casserole, wild rice and herb with buttered old hen; the cabin was steamy and aromatic with rosemary and thyme. "Sit down, A.B. What’s this, Brandy?" "And pecan pie, fresh made from the diner." "Wow, fresh pecan pie, must be quite a problem brought you up the hill." "I got offered a new job, a really good one." "Well, that is always a problem eventually. Sit down, the biddy and wild rice is almost ready." "The problem is that they have a drug screen, and random testing." I sat, she put the brandy in the cupboard and brought out a jar with sliced peaches in 190 proof alcohol, and put a peach each in two small glasses, then poured the liquor over them. She opened the oven door and the perfume of the herbs and wild rice bloomed into the room. She got out her corncob pipe and mason jar of seedy buds and finally sat down. She raised her glass of orange tinted alcohol and said, "here’s to sweet forgetfulness," and we downed the shots. I was momentarily overcome by a fuzzy peachy burning which worked from my startled tongue down my throat to nestle in my belly like embers in a wood stove. I followed with the peach, which was sweet and good. Granny recovered first, "so, they want to sniff you pee, eh? I’d have to ask myself questions about anyone who wanted to do something like that." "It’s a good job, Granny, with retirement. To be honest, smoking pot isn’t that important. I could drink more beer. We could use the bigger income. " She took some buds from the jar and rolled them around in the lid to get some of the seeds out; she got up and threw the seeds into the casserole and the herb smell grew. She packed the green buds into her corncob pipe and put the pipe in the middle of the table. "Big money and nice retirement, eh? Gee, that sounds like the cat’s meow. What’s cost again?" "No, cost, I just have to pass the initial test and not smoke weed, at least not very often." Granny laughed and laughed. "Getting past the first test is easy, Sparky, go on the internet. I don’t think that’s the problem." She tossed two plates and forks on the table, got half a loaf of French bread and some soft butter, and pulled the casserole from the oven, plunking it down on a towel. My stomach growled. She sat down, broke the bread and handed me half. She said, "the problem, A.B., is, if you take money from them, you’re their pooch, they can do what they want to you. That’s what the extra money is for, boy, it isn’t for the work you do, it’s to be their girlfriend when they feel like it. What do you make at your business now?" "Oh, it depends, generally a couple of grand a month. It isn’t a lot, but with Honey’s wages, we do O.K." Granny spooned rice and old hen onto her plate and shoved the casserole to me. "O.K., now, that’s honest money, and you hold your head up when you collect it." I dished a heaping helping. "Yeah." I raised my fork... "Wait!" Granny said, lifting the corncob pipe, "first, a little kiss from Mary, to make the flavor better." I paused. A pipe would make passing the pee test harder. "You have enough money now, and you hold your head up when you collect it, and, if you like, you smoke a little weed. If you take their money they own all of you, even your piddle. How much is that worth in today’s dollars?" I took the pipe. We ate the biddy which was fantastic, and much later, driving home, I was a new man. Granny was right, the point of the test is nothing to do with proficiency or safety, it is simply a way for me to "drink the koolaid", to prove my loyalty to an official view of the world by agreeing to any request no matter how pointless or invasive, in short, as Granny said, make me their bitch. The job simply didn’t pay enough, and anyway, why should I help them, let them send out of the area for someone willing to swallow their stuff.