The Adventures of J.M. Simon, Part 1: How Hempfest Ruined My Career

Good afternoon and thank you so much for allowing me to present this amazing opportunity to you today. Just like your neighbors know, you will soon discover the importance of Hassleman Engineering's contribution to the field of wet-vac technology. You see, many homes today have a combination of carpeted and hardwood floors, and anyone with hardwood knows just how irritating it is to have to use two different devices just to keep their home clean. With the Hassleman All-n'-One, you can service your entire home with the same dirt-fighting super system. No longer will you have to manually sweep those hardwood floors. Why, that's just like... that's just... it's like dragging sand paper... it's... aw, who am I kidding?

Look, this isn't me. It just... it just isn't me. Things used to be different, ya know? Real nice. I wasn't born a door-to-door salesman. No, siree. Not long ago, I was a lawyer. I'd made my bones climbing my way up from the thankless dregs of paralegal purgatory into a respectable position at a small firm just south of downtown. I was a business type, not some ambulance-chaser or those class action bloodsuckers. No, I made sure contracts were clean, mergers were smooth and day traders stayed honest. Then Hempfest came to town.

I'm still paying off my law school loans, so I've been living lean. I took public transit even when I was sporting a suit and tie. I had a Saturday meeting with a client and everything started out so well. It was a sunny day, I'd gotten a good night's sleep. There was no reason to believe anything would go wrong. Then, at the 5th and Pike stop two monsters got on the bus. One was a woman who looked to be in her mid-40's. She was wearing a sash made out of cannabis leaves and her jean shorts were threadbare. Looking back, she seems so feral to me now. Her companion was a thick 30-something beast with white-guy dreads and a fanny pack. He sat down next to me and I clenched my briefcase.

The smell didn't hit me straight away. It sort of wafted like some kind of insidious, sentient vapor and clasped the left side of my body. Like a stroke. Like a stroke of pure stoner-stink. My politeness was my undoing. I tried in vain to gather clean air from the cracked window a few seats in front of me, but even a giant hole in the side of the bus wouldn't have done me any good. The synergistic stench of stale pot, a kiddie pool's worth of patchouli oil and whatever esters gathered in the folds of prehistoric man took over my senses like a homebrew neurotoxin. I experienced the singular horror of remaining conscious through the shutdown of my motor functions. By the time I passed out, I had been screaming in my head for a solid minute.

I woke up several hours later in the dark. The skin of my cheek was fused to the seat of the bus. I was temporarily blind in one eye. I heard a bubbling sound and pulled my aching body upright. There, in the driver's seat, was the hippie beast, an immodest bong protruding from the void by his feet. He greeted me and offered me a rip, which I declined. I looked out the window and saw only desert. When the beast saw the panic on my face, he informed me that we were in "Alaska... no, wait... Nevada" without ever saying why.

It was then that I realized my briefcase was missing. I scrambled around looking for it, shouting to no one in particular that it had all of the files for the Morrison case. The beast took another hit then told me we lost that case. Yes, "we". My cell phone had just enough juice left in the battery for me to listen to a half dozen angry messages from Mrs. Morrison, my boss Calvin and my landlord.

But that was two years ago and a lot has happened since then. It's making me sick just reliving it. So, you gonna buy this stupid vacuum or not?