Saturday, May 10, 2008

Debauchery

Two short thoughts today, on the rougish and dubious topics of vandalism and narcotics:

I was on the ride down from Flagstaff, headed towards home, when nature called and I asked my dad, the one driving, to pull us over into the next rest stop. That thankfully came quickly, and I hurried myself into the restroom. While there, I made note of the usual stall graffiti. It came equipped with the usual: Individual's names, sporadic profanity, proclimations of eternal love--

And then I noticed one graffito that seemed a bit out of place. In crude, scratched handwriting, someone had scrawled the moniker "Monster Blood."

"Monster Blood?" Honestly. Given the maladroit nature of the scratching, I am inclined to believe it was a child who wrote that particular bit of doggrel--but again, I find myself asking, what child young enough to think the phrase "Monster Blood" sounds edgy or frightening would have the time to scratch it into the metal walls of a rest stop bathroom stall? Could there honestly be some gangster out there with "Monster Blood" as his or her calling card?

If so, I think you may need to think of a better commando name.

And while we're on the subject of lawbreakers, the nicknames that junkies give to their brain-scramblers of choice are just baffling. In particular, using the phrase "wacky tobaccy" to describe cannabis just seems silly. The absurd rhyme--not to mention the mere presence of the word "wacky"--make it sound like something a prospector would say. And I really can't imagine a miner 49 toking in a dorm room with his buddies.

The truly sad thing is how long this thought has been with me: Five years. Ever since a presentation by a parole officer in a high school class that included a long list of "street names" for various drugs.

W|R|A|T|H|F|U|L|N|E|S|S: My anti-drug.

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