Why I dont do drugs — Part 3 — My Story

My friend, when I was in grade 8, his dad repaired arcade machines. I thought it was the coolest job in the world. What he would do is he would bring all the machines that were broken home and put them in his garage, fix them, and then rotate them from one bowling alley to the next and that kind of thing. And so he always had half of the machines were broken, half of them were waiting to be rotated. And so you could play half the machines. And he just left the doors open and you could just press the trigger and play for as long as you wanted. And so we would go in his garage and play after school, on Sundays, you know, all the time. And his dad always carried a beer in one of those little beer cozies around with him. And one time I came in and there was nobody. I must have got off school early or something, but I came in the garage. And we were allowed. He didn't care. He said, "Just come in whenever you want and play." And I went in and there was nobody in there. And so I started looking at what game I wanted to play. And then I saw, sitting on top of one of the machines, a beer in a beer cozy. I looked at it. We didn't have beer in my house because my parents didn't drink. And, uh, and still don't. And I thought, "I wonder what it tastes like. I've heard that it tastes kind of weird. I might just have some. Ah, I better not. What if he comes?" So I played another game, and nobody came. Maybe I'll just have a sip. So I walked over and I quickly took it off and I went outside and hid around the corner of the house. And then, "Okay, just one big drink and then I'll put it away." I tipped it back because it was half full. Oh! And I spat it out. And when it came out, it was beer, but also it was cigarette ashes. And he had been tipping his cigarettes off into the beer can. And so I got a mouthful, and this is the only recollection I have of what beer tastes like. Beer tastes like beer, whatever that is, with ash. Cigarette ash. It was horrible! And so I went back and I put it back where it was, and I thought, "Oh, I hope he doesn't drink it and forget that he used it like that." But evidently he knew which ones he tipped his cigarettes into, but I didn't. And I have just never— that combined with seeing what it's done to my aunts and uncles and my grandfather, I have just never been tempted to try it again. When I was 17, I went for the summer to Hawaii, and I lived in Lahaina, which is a beautiful tourist town on the island of Maui, and my job was probably the coolest job I've ever had. You know the big macaws, the birds, the blue and gold birds, and the red macaws, like parrots, and they can spread their wings really far? They can be trained to do tricks. And I worked for a guy who had a little stall facing the beach. So we were on the street, but you could see the water and everything out there, people walking by. We would stand there with these birds, and we'd have— I think he had 7 of them, and he rotated them, and there was always 3 sitting there on the perch. And as people would walk by, my job was to get them to take a photo, to have a photo. I would take a photo of them holding the bird. But most people, when you would say to them, "Would you like to hold one of the birds?" they'd say, "No way, I don't— that's—" It's too big, it would be heavy, it would claw on my arm. And I realized this, most people weren't interested. But they wanted to look at the birds. They just didn't want them touching them. So I came up with another strategy. I would put the bird on this arm and let people touch it and stuff. And then after talking to them for a minute or two, and they may have patted the bird a couple times, I'd say, "Oh, sorry, my name's Dave." And it's just impulse. When somebody holds their hand out to you, what do you do? You reach out and shake their hand. So they'd reach out to shake my hand. And if you bumped the bird on the chest, it would just step up onto whatever was in front of it. So if it was the perch, you could put it away really easy. Or if it was somebody's arm that you had a hold of. So as that arm, as I shook the hand, I said, "Good to meet you," and just bumped the bird's chest. And the bird just steps up on their arm. And they go, "Oh, wow, it's so light." Yeah, their bones are hollow. "That's amazing." I say, "You think that's amazing? Watch this." And then you just go like this at the bird's chest. "Oom-poom." And the bird just, "Poom-poom," throws its wings open. And they go, "Wow." I say, "That is amazing. Do you think any of your friends back at home would believe that you held a bird that beautiful in Hawaii?" "Not a chance," they'd say. I'd say, "Well, would you like a photo to prove it?" "Yeah!" And so then I'd take my photo and sell them the Polaroid. And so this was my job. And after 6 hours— I worked for 6 hours, 4 days a week— and after the 6 hours were over, Mike would come. And Mike was the guy who did the night shift with the birds. And Mike was— I think he was Italian. I can't really remember, but he had this really small— maybe he was French, I don't know— but he had this really small accent. And he was very darkly tanned because he spent all weekend out on the water and all day because he worked at night. And he was just like walking cancer waiting to happen. Um, and, uh, but he was really tan and all the ladies thought he was gorgeous. And Mike had one goal in life, and he was happy to tell anyone except for the girls that what his goal was. His goal was to sleep with one woman from every nation. And so he had been traveling the world going from nation to nation to nation, and then he came to Maui. Māui, and he realized they all come here. So he got a job and he stayed and he waited and he would just say, "Hey, where are you from?" And they'd say, "El Salvador." "Ah, been to El Salvador. Where are you from?" And then he would meet someone from a culture that he hadn't met before and he would get another notch on his belt. And this was Mike's kind of dream life. He was in Māui and all the women were coming to him. And one night as we were swapping over, he said, "Hey Dave, this weekend a friend of mine is loaning me his yacht, and I've got some lovely ladies coming out on the yacht. Why don't you come out with me?" And I said, "Uh, no, Mike, I'm not really that interested in that kind of, you know, whatever." And he said, "What do you mean?" And I said, "Well, I just, um, well, I—" And he said, "What?" I said, "I'm kind of waiting until I get married to have sex." And he said, "Well, you don't mean you're a virgin?" And I said, "Well, yeah, yeah, I guess I am." And he said, "Whoa! I have never in my life met a guy virgin! That is really cool! Dude, we can fix that! Come on!" And I said, "No, no, no, it's not something that I want to fix, Mike. It's something that I've chosen." And he said, "Oh, okay, well look, I don't understand you, but I like you." And so then another couple weeks later, the night was, you know, he was coming and he said, "Hey, what are you doing tonight about 11 o'clock when I get off?" And I said, "Probably be sleeping." He said, "Oh, don't sleep. Come out to the pub with us. We're gonna have a special night tonight. We're having lots of fun and I'll buy your drinks for you." And I said, "Oh, Mike, I don't drink." And I didn't tell him the whole story. I just told you about why I don't drink. And he said, "I just—" I said, "It's a life choice. I just decided I don't drink." He said, "Oh," he said, "because you're—" He said, "How old are you?" I said, "17." He said, "Ah," he said, "we'll get you in. They won't know the difference." He said, "I'll buy the beer. Nobody will know." I said, "No, no, I don't want to drink. I don't drink. I've never had any alcohol." He said, "Never?" I said, "No." He said, "Dude, you are weird." He said, "Well, just come and have a milk or something." And I'm thinking, like, I'm gonna be asleep. 11 o'clock. I'll see you later. And okay, and then another time as we were there, um, Casey pulled up, and Casey was the guy