Are your thoughts turning to greener pastures? Or would "out to pasture" be more appropriate? One of the many bunched up there? Soon to retire? . . . Pension plans and options drive Cubetown, without them no one would live this way. Would you? Musing, surfing the Net . . . no kids left at home . . . no pee tests at work when working for yourself or just taking life easy. . . .

And you know that when you had kids at home, you copped out and lied to them about pot and parroted the cops who talked to them in classrooms, because the truth is you were afraid of the cops yourself, and maybe even of your own kids . . . but . . . all other things aside . . . pot's main attraction is to make you feel young. . . . And even if it's been 20 years since you turned on, you remember that vividly, don't you?

If you're a guy, at around age 45, your muscle begins to turn to flab and a couple of years later, you have a vague pain that travels about, and sooner or later, it has company . . . and a mild analgesic that makes you feel young is not going to be permitted to this huge bunch of people after they retire? What excuse? They're gonna rob banks? Not get to work on time? They're retired, for God's sake!

At a certain age, you realize something . . . pot is wasted on the young; the older you get the better it is . . . you can feel young for a couple of hours. How long can the marijuana prohibition stand up against the huge number of elderly who are getting wise to this? Word travels quickly these days.

Has the question of edema ever crossed your mind? It has mine, and this is strictly anecdotal, what I've noted over several decades. . . . It kills, people drown in place, fluid in the lungs. There are causes, many, some can be fixed and some can't. Treatments tend to be of the painful and intrusive kind, involving pumps and tubes. But if you have a tendency for fluid to build in your lungs, isn't it going to show up a bit earlier? And isn't it a notorious fact that pot smokers blow all the fluids out their lungs and nasal passages frequently? This is a powerful and thorough expectorant, something no teen unless afflicted with a head cold could truly appreciate, but any man or woman past age 45 can look upon fondly for some ease and comfort in life. (The government much prefers that you use opiate expectorants, for your health and safety. Yes indeed.)

Just a thought for you there in your cube, but you'll soon be sprung into the world, and that will be here in no time at all, trust me on that one. Except your back aches now . . . and you feel a thousand years old . . . but why the hell should you? Youth is only a couple of tokes away, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. But you're not in school, how do you score, anyway? You need this over the counter, enough of this "full employment for cops" shit. You're a bureaucratic veteran, you know that's it's never been much more than that. Run-of-the-mill payroll padding, fueled by crusades in government. The true believers are the suckers outside. Senior citizens don't need a prohibition, they can squash the gonads of almost anyone via the voting booth. They need to be able to buy a lid at the corner store, and you bet they're going to find out and make that happen! AARP already signed you up, shake em up, send 'em an e-mail . . . pot for seniors, now!