Well, they said it was perfectly okay – everybody nodded and looked dreamy. First time – big adventure. Helps with your homework – read a whole book in two hours – clears your brain. You had enthusiastic testimonials all over the place.
Brother’s friend of a friend – found it in his sock drawer. Tiny brown vial, not even big enough for an aspirin. He wouldn’t notice – he had three others and a whole pile of McDonalds coffee spoons. You heard about those – you grabbed two just to be safe.
It was the weekend – serious socializing – major party.
You and your girlfriends – the three of you – locked in a bathroom – dipping your McSpoon in the vial. Not sure how the whole procedure worked, but you made it up as you went along. Took a big snort in one nostril and your head exploded. All of a sudden everything in life made sense. Took a big snort in the other nostril and you loved everybody for ever.
Passed it to your girlfriends just in time for your nose to go dead-numb – taste of metal chips in the back of your throat and you wanted one more blast.
By now you were high-octane – the three of you speed-rapping and busy with nothing in particular. Dancing seemed like a great idea.
Sweating gallons – guys bringing you beers and asking questions – no, you weren’t seeing anybody and sure, you can call – your girlfriends were busy complicating their own lives – everybody knew everybody anyway and it was going to be a love fest come Monday morning – or no one was going to remember a thing.
You kept wandering in and out of the bathroom, hogging the contents of the little brown vial all to yourself and wiping your nose before you got back to the party.
Apparently you weren’t the only one with a little brown vial. Seems the bathroom was busy getting visitors. A lot of sneezing and runny noses as the night sped along – Kleenex was in big demand.
You were so busy making the night last that you forgot what morning looked like – piercing yellow ball and dry red eyes squinting. Having made several friends with their own little brown vials that night, you were in no condition to stop the party. So it was a toss between Canter’s, Gorki’s or Oki-Dog. And an army of high-voltage friends roared into Oki-Dog where no one had an appetite – coffee was as far as you all went, along with sneezing, dripping sinuses and itchy eyes. Onlookers laughed.
You finally got dropped off around noon to the place you remembered as home.
Nobody said a word to you as you staggered off to your room. Body exhausted but brain still in fifth gear – took you hours to finally get to sleep.
Took the grand prize for worst night’s sleep ever – when you finally did get to sleep it was one bizarre dream after the next.
Having no idea what day it was or if it was morning or night, your clock radio went off, sending shock waves through your body.
Your mouth felt like half of Skid Row slept in it – sheets were soaked, brain was foggy and KROQ was humming along at a brisk pace.
Feeling like death was holding you hostage, you got enough strength to sit up and gaze around the room. You felt thoroughly rotten.
But . . .you couldn’t wait to do it again – you wondered how much a gram of that stuff cost. If you asked your brother he would kill you and charge you for the batch you stole. You fell back asleep and KROQ kept humming along.
You’ll grow out of this – sure, you will. It’s the 80s – you can quit any time – honest.
Here’s a 40 minute slice of KROQ exactly as it was heard on September 1, 1986.
