In this informal, conversational recount, two speakers narrate a chaotic company retreat that took place at the Great Pumpkin Blaze on the Hudson in New York. The story begins with Speaker A describing a back injury sustained while playing tennis with Jeremy, which hampers his mobility during the retreat. Jenna offers a high‑dose THC gummy (25 mg) to alleviate the pain, leading to an intense, hallucinatory experience where time feels distorted and the pumpkin seems to talk. While under the influence, Speaker A and his son Jake struggle to keep up with the group, eventually boarding a car. The THC‑induced time perception causes confusion about how long they have been waiting, prompting a debate about whether to head to Kelsey’s location or leave. Meanwhile, other team members (Kelsey, Aaron, Tracy, Judy, Kristen, etc.) are scattered, and communication breaks down, leading to a feeling that half the team vanished without notice. The narrative highlights the mishaps, the reliance on friends for support, the humorous misinterpretations caused by the THC, and the eventual realization that the group’s leadership (Aaron) had to acknowledge the split. The tone remains light, humorous, and reflective, emphasizing how shared, quirky stories become "remember‑whens" that bond a team.
Chapters
The greatest form of human connection is shared stories. I call 'em the remember whens. Tracy's a great friend of yours, Judy is, Kristen for sure. I strongly suspect when you get together with your friends, you say, "I remember when." Yes. Right? We do that as a team here. Retreats give you the opportunity to create those moments. There was one instance, and there will be a drug reference here, so if that's a trigger warning, I want it out there, so skip the next minute or two. We went to, it was in New York, it was on the river, I think, right?
Oh, we went to the Great Pumpkin Blaze on the Hudson there.
I tweaked, I'd said something with my back, and I had difficulty walking. In fact, Jeremy and I were playing tennis, And I couldn't even move. I was hurt. And I remember a few times we're walking through this pumpkin blaze, I just had to sit, like kind of squat down and stretch my back. And my son was even there. Jake was there, I think. I'm like, "Dude, I need you to actually help me stand up." Jenna is like, "Oh, I have these THC things." The gummies with weed in it. She's like, "Take it." I pop it in. 5 milligrams is intense. This thing's like 25 milligrams. All of a sudden it's like, "Rawr, rawr, rawr, pumpkin's talking to me. What's going on?" Admittedly, back pain was— I don't know, it's still there. I am so lit up and we're walking around. My son's there, thank God. And he's kind of guiding me through this thing. We get back to the car and because there was enough of us, we needed 2 or 3 vehicles. 2 cars.
2 cars, yeah.
I get in the car and we're sitting there. One thing that happens when I have THC pumping through me, I lose the concept of time. Something that's like 30 seconds seems like an hour and an hour could happen in 5 seconds. So we're sitting in the car for perhaps 5 seconds. I'm like, "Why are we still sitting here? I'm like, it's so long. Let's just go right to Kelsey." She's like, "We don't know where those people are." I'm like, "They already left.
Let's just go home." So let me tell you.
Yeah.
I'm in the other group of people. Yeah, yeah. We get out through the— because of course they funnel you through the gift shop as you leave the pumpkin place. We get out to the parking area and I'm like, did they somehow get behind us? Are they still in there? We're waiting, we're waiting, and we're waiting. And no way in my mind at all did half of our team leave us without telling us that they left. This is like the mountain thing. This is our company's version of the mountain.
And there was one idiot who led the charge. It was me. Because Kelsey's like, no, we should stay. And I'm like, no!
I think it was finally Aaron who's just like, I think those fuckers left us.
