This Bud's On Me ~ What "Miami Style" Used To Mean

It was surreal, really. I'd been invited to a birthday party at a nearby coffee house, the kind with live folk music, but the place kind of stretches the definition of "coffee house" to encompass a wide selection of imported beers and wines. The "birthday girl" was a local folk singer, perhaps too young to remember Bob Dylan in his prime, but not exactly a spring chicken either.

The place was crowded beyond belief. Since you can't smoke inside anyplace these days there were plenty of people outside satiating their nicotine requirements. Business people, doctors, lawyers, essentialy an educated and upscale crowd. Suddenly the guy I was chatting with said "You smoke, don't you, Al?" I held up my bidi. "No no! that's not what I mean!" as he pulled a little pipe and a bud out of a zip-lock that he'd had in his pocket.

Here we were, a bunch of rapidly greying and balding middle age and older guys, pillars of the community, passing around the pipe, toking away! Law abiding, too! We were doing it outside, right? Right across the street from the police station. I hadn't smoked in years and rapidly got really ripped. My benefactor gave me a bud "for later". He was really proud of his son and the great weed the kid was growing in his hydroponic garden. I think he said it was in Oregon. Gotta be proud of your kids! It was indeed some good shit!

When I got home I scanned the bud. The next couple of nights I had a great time incinerating the evidence.