Thank you to … the Amsterdam cafe staff who nursed me through a weed-related crisis
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Dear cafe staff,
You sat with me for nearly an hour, as I became the world’s worst ad for anything weed-related in front of your irked customers. That weekend – I explained as you passed me the nth glass of water – I had been booked for a panel discussion in Amsterdam, a stay I extended by three days to convert business into pleasure, a much-needed mini-break I intended to spend almost entirely baked. To facilitate this, I went to a place that did the “best space cakes in the cityâ€; “bestâ€, I soon realised, meaning “the ones most likely to make me think I dropped one of my ears on the high street when running from Godâ€.
On my last day, with a fair amount in my bloodstream already, I ate a quarter of a space cake and felt a bit tired. An hour passed; still nothing but a mild case of the munchies. And, like a spoilt child in a moralising fairytale, I decided to sate my hunger with another quarter.
It was during a walking tour of the city that the world casually began to cave in. I glanced downwards and the floor was suddenly at the tip of my nose. I then suspected I was a mere millimetre away from everyone else in the group, and that my slightest movement would send the six-year-old near me flying across the square. Slowly, I began stepping back, attracting bemused looks. The jig was up. I wasn’t concerned that they would realise I was high as a kite on the face of the moon, but that now they were “out to get meâ€. My backwards walk became a backwards run. The skyline began to drip on to the pavement. I became convinced of a growing conspiracy to keep me stoned enough to miss my flight home, which was in two hours.
I managed to lug myself into another coffee shop – yours – to die quietly on your couch.
“Was it something we gave you?†one of you asked, touching my forehead. And though it wasn’t, you tended to me with the bedside manner of a paediatrician caring for a child with a broken arm. You rallied around me with water, assuring me there wasn’t a conspiracy and you definitely weren’t part of one. You weren’t fussed when I pointed out that that was exactly what someone would say if involved in a conspiracy. You handed me an orange, and comforted me when I tearfully realised I had forgotten how to peel one. You suppressed smirks as I asked if I would ever feel my face again. Dazed, I asked how long I’d been there. “I’d say about eight minutes,†one of you replied. At that, I actually began to cry.
Though I can’t recall your shop’s name for obvious reasons, to you all, I am eternally grateful: for the lakes-worth of water, for the non-stop sweets, for bundling me into a cab to the airport. But most of all, for putting up with a smug tourist, who even though she has done it all before, still manages to make an absolute tit of herself in Amsterdam.
Yomi
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