The Jail Bird Weed Guy From My First Night In ER

So I got to the hospital on Wednesday, April 7th. On that first night there, I had to wait in the waiting room before getting admitted into the ER. Well, there was this guy there, I'm going to call him Weed Guy, or WG for short.

WG was very entertaining to listen to, he was telling the strangers around him about his time spent in jail, and how the only medication he takes is medical marijuana.

I was kind of scared of him at first because I couldn't really see him, and he was telling some real scary stories about his time in jail. But then he rolled into my eyeshot and I found out he was a double leg amputee so I became much less scared of him, knowing I could easily outrun him.

After he rolled into eyeshot, I watched him roll a perfect joint and light it up. My mans WG was smoking a joint right in the ER. And you could tell it was bad too because it STANK. And I mean STắNK. Within 5 minutes of him lighting up, a security guard came over to stop him.

For about another hour, I listened to more relics of his jail time, his outbursts about "not being a crack head", and the most bizarre political views I've ever heard in my life. He was very anti-police, recorded every conversation he had with the nurses and security guards, was very into the #BLM movement (we stan that) BUT what struck me as odd is he was anti-vax. It seemed like some intense cognitive dissonance - how can you support a movement like Black Lives Matter, but then not get a vaccine ESPECIALLY because Covid is affecting racial minorities the most. I'm going to come back to this later because I'm trying to write this in chronological order.

So It's about midnight now, and the security guards go on shift change. WG takes the opportunity to ask a nurse if he can smoke a joint because medical marijuana is, once again, the only medication he takes and Tylenol doesn't work for him. To my surprise, the nurse said yes! Then I watched a second weird thing happen: despite watching WG roll a PERFECT joint not but an hour ago, WG starts saying "I usually use a bong but I'm so clumsy, so I didn't bring it. I don't even know if I can remember how to roll a joint."

You can imagine my confusion having just watched him roll a joint IMMACULATELY just over an hour ago. What was his angle? He does eventually roll and smoke another joint, but somehow this one looked like his first-ever attempt at rolling one. Why keep up that facade? At least one nurse told him he could smoke it. Well, he got halfway through and the security guard that was originally there came back on shift - I guess the other security guard that was cool with it was just covering for him or something? I don't know. Well, they have him put his dank stank out AGAIN.

Okay, it gets better. So after he's told to put out his joint, he rolls over closer to me where there's a charging port. (Your girl is smart and picked a spot next to a charging port. A little trick you pick up when you travel lots...OR TRAVELLED lots *sobs in Covid* ). This is where things get interesting. He drops his phone so I hand sanitized, picked it up for him, handed it to him, then hand sanitized again. I mean, he is wheelchair-bound and he was telling me how it's not even his wheelchair, it's one that's much harder to navigate in than the one he's used to. So I'm feeling sympathetic to his situation. Well handing him his phone kind of opens Pandora's Box into talking about his life and weird political views!

Plot twist: it was me who opened Pandoras Box. Well, if I was going to be stuck talking to this guy I decided I was going to be just as annoying in my views. I asked him why he didn't want to get the Covid-19 Vaccine, especially considering that a lot of his friends were in a more at-risk demographic. I listened to his concerns, which were that the Vaccine hadn't been out for that long and he didn't know what the long-term effects would be. I was proud of myself for being able to educate him on the amount of research that has gone into mRNA vaccines for LONG before we needed one for Covid. I had stats about its efficacy, and the importance of building herd immunity especially because Alberta's relaunch plan is now based on how many people are vaccinated, NOT how many cases we have. And wouldn't you believe it, I convinced WG to get the vaccine!! (Either that or he just agreed with me to get me to shut up)

BUT WAIT THERE'S MORE! The nurse came to take BOTH OF US BACK TO ER at the same time and we ended up being neighbors. I won't disclose what he was in for because I'm pretty sure at this point I was just eavesdropping but what I will disclose is that this MAN LIT AND SMOKED ANOTHER JOINT in the thinly curtained room right next to mine. It seemed there was no escaping this. Luckily for me, he went home within 3 hours of being admitted to ER. Unluckily for me, I've been here for 5 whole ass days.

Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story about my first night at the hospital! I'm planning on setting up some way to subscribe to my blog posts if that's something that would interest you.