Like Chickens With Their Heads Cut Off

One of my long time friends mentioned Molly Hatchet's Flirtin' With Disaster in an app on Facebook and it reminded what happened to my copy.

I've talked before about my recreational drug use in a galaxy far, far away. One of my points was that people who do abuse drugs can actually have a good time - which seems to be something the just say no crowd glosses over. This story is one that is pretty funny now, but not so much at the time.

Smoking pot on a regular basis can be an expensive proposition, even back in the "good ol' days." So, anything that could get us off cheaply was something to at least be considered. Kansas had a fair amount of "ditchweed" growing in unlikely places. I think it's been pretty well eradicated these days, but back then, it could be found. The original strains were from varieties designed to grow hemp fibers, and it was a cash crop. Hemp fibers made good rope, but the THC (tetrahydrolcannabinol) levels were extremely low - and THC is the psychoactive substance that gets people high. The THC found in ditchweed is also inferior - supposedly there are quite a few different compounds, and some don't "work" as well. Also, supposedly, if low heat was judiciously applied, the lower compounds could be "boosted" to the more desirable varieties. At least this is what some of the ads for some pot treating equipment sold in High Times told us. Probably the same bunch that marketed fish carburetors or magnetic fuel line treaters.

So, here we are with a bunch of free pot that is mostly worthless lying around. About all one would get from smoking this stuff was a headache. What to do? What would a bunch of future capitalists and conservatives work out?

Enter the concept of hash oil. It is the resin extracted from hashish or marijuana, and it's in a manageable liquid form. Apparently it is also cut with molasses, since it always tasted sweet, and there is nothing sweet about mary jane. So, we needed a solvent. Alcohol works well, but we weren't too wild about denatured or wood alcohol - if we couldn't drink it, the idea of burning it and sucking down the fumes just didn't appeal to us. We might have been crazy, but we weren't completely stupid - well, maybe.

So we used Everclear. A test run was successful. I strained some weed with some Everclear, and cooked off the alcohol in a small foil container. It got us high - for about ten minutes. It was strong, too. We were sold. Production would commence.

So, we started processing in some buddies' house - we'll call them Luke and Bill (not their real names). We had a rather large supply of ditchweed - supplied with help from Gus (not his real name), and we stripped the leaves, seeds and such into coffee filters, which we folded over and stapled. The packets were placed in a cooking pan full of boiling everclear, and taken out when the resin was removed. More packets were placed in the solution, until it seemed fairly saturated. Cooking out the alcohol was the next step.

I didn't want to ruin the pan we were using, so I picked out a mayonnaise jar to use. You can probably tell where this is going, since mayo jars aren't usually made of Pyrex. I knew this, and compensated for it by using very low heat. We were using a gas stove, too. Nothing could possibly go wrong here. The process would take a lot longer, but the glass shouldn't break or the alcohol catch fire if the heat was kept low enough. Alcohol boils at a far lower temperature than water as well. I had the concoction mildly bubbling and went into the living room to relax.

Luke (not his real name) was not and is still not known for his patience. He, as one of the interested parties, arrived in the kitchen and decided the procedure could be sped up considerably if the heat was turned up a commiserate amount. More heat = less time waiting, or so he thought. He cranked the burner up to high, and the bubbling increased to his satisfaction.

I had been keeping a pretty close eye on the manufacturing process, checking every few minutes, so I happened to wander in the kitchen to hear Luke (not his real name) explain to me how he'd turned the fire up - it was just taking too long, and he'd dealt with it. It never occurred to him to check with me - the Evil Mastermind (not my real name) - if maybe - just maybe - I didn't have a good reason for the slower procedure.

I can only imagine what the expression on my face looked like - I'm quite sure extreme shock was part of it. At this time, the alcohol fumes suddenly lit on fire. I knew I had to get the jar away from the heat and get the fire out, so I grabbed a lid and some oven mitts. I put the lid on the jar, extinguishing the flames, and pulled the jar away from the stove -

only to have the pressure from the lid and the cracks suddenly appearing in the bottom of the jar combine to blow out the bottom of the jar all over the floor, which was tile and had a couple throw rugs that were drenched - and FOOM! The fumes ignited! The throw rugs were on fire. Luke (not his real name) and I started stomping the fires out with our feet, only to see our efforts wasted when we put out one section, the previously extinguished section ignited again. We were like chickens with our heads cut off clomping around that kitchen.

Remember Bill (not his real name)? He had his shit in one sock, as it were. When the conflagration began, he saw that our efforts would be useless. He also remembered that Luke (not his real name) had his dad's boat outside. Bill (not his real name) knew that boats have fire extinguishers, which he immediately ran out to retrieve, run back in, and put out the fire.

That dust was everywhere. It was in the cabinets. It was in the drawers. It was in other rooms. The stove's pilot lights were non functional. My Molly Hatchet album - on the turntable in the living room - was covered, and even after careful cleaning with my Diskwasher left serious pops and cracks in that side of the disk. My bangs, eyebrows, mustache and beard had been considerably trimmed. I was wearing a t-shirt with a big hole in the chest and belly, and the hairs underneath were scorched. The throw rugs were ruined.

But, the place didn't burn down.

I'll be emailing the link to this story to some of the players and associated characters of the day. This narrative has become something of a legend among us, and certain liberties by some tale tellers have been taken. However, I can assure you, as one of the main combatants that this scenario is the true version. Kids - don't you dare try this at home.

And Thanks Be to G_d for the statute of limitations.