Panic in Needle Park

Las Vegas holds its residents and workforce to surprisingly high standards. You'd think with a moniker like Sin City this desert wasteland would be a new scum mecca dedicated to Mars and Athena. But it's smarter than that… As any successful drug dealer will tell you, there are fortunes to be made, so long as you yourself are not a victim of the vice. And these mobsters have learned that lesson well.

I have applied to roughly fifty different businesses in the area and ALL of them have mandatory drug testing as a pre-hire condition. Even the fucking video stores!

Now, I've always used drugs as a vacation of sorts. Some people like to visit Hawaii, others France, say. I, however, have found it cheaper and more fulfilling to travel introspectively to the sick sad world that is my psyche. I plan trips just as I would a trip: budget, supplies, companions.

Eight months of unemployment is itself a vacation, so with the exception of a few drags off a joint at Kate's apartment last July, I've been clean as maternity doctor. And, as the cartoon suggests, I have the digestive prowess of the harvest god, so nothing sticks around for more than an hour or two.

My hair, however, has most loyally documented each and every sordid detail of my existence, so it had to be dealt with. ;(

I am, however, interested in the results. I have erroneously failed such tests before. I believe my body manufactures its own chemicals, which would explain the perpetual hallucinations. Clever brain… The opiate metabolites of Morning Glory were once confused for heroin. That made for an interesting lecture.

Um… oh yeah. Be safe children! Don't do drugs (unless your reputation is on the line). Being cool is more important than safety, salvation, and civility.