Okay, Sorta

Yes, I’m Colombian.

And when people find out I’m Colombian, they assume I have either smoked weed or snorted some cocaine, the way you are thinking right now and doubting my previous statement.

New acquaintances bring their index finger to the tip of their nose and flick it while saying, “Eh, Colombia, you say.”

The following statement is a question as to whether or not I know either of the most famous Colombians: Pablo Escobar or Shakira.

My response has been canned for precisely these situations.

“I never got to try all of our good drugs because greedy gringos were the highest bidder, and cartels believe in open market policies.”

Why take on a drug habit with poor-quality drugs?

As for Escobar, I never had the pleasure, and for Shakira, we’ll set something once she responds to my fan mail.

I never smoked pot because my mom scared me to death about trying it, “Carlos Eduardo, you are asthmatic, and if you ever decide to smoke marihuana, it will probably be your last decision because you will most certainly die.”

Once I became older and understood that not everything my mom said was accurate, there was no appeal for me to start. I just didn’t like the idea of losing control.

Until I got engaged to my wife.

My wife’s cousins, Brittany and Anthony, organized our bachelor-bachelorette party. They rented a party bus and invited 40 of our friends to tour three wineries in Sonoma County. It was epic!

At the second winery, we all walked out of the bus, and Blake produced what I have known to be technically described as a doobie. He lit it up and offered it to me.

At that moment, I thought, “Why not?”

All my life, I had been a ‘goodie-tissues,’ which is how I used to say “goody-two-shoes.”

I was.

I went to college after I graduated. I immigrated to the United States, and my college credits did not immigrate with me. So, I started all over again and held two jobs while doing it. I met the love of my life, committed to her, and I would be married before my thirtieth birthday.

I felt like a good guy. Why not let loose a little?

I am sure one little puff was not going to make me into the drug addict I always feared. I took the ganja and smoked it, and when I had taken the puff, Blake said, “Now, inhale.”

At this point, I thought he was clearly taking advantage of me because I had never smoked weed.

I didn’t inhale, and I handed the joint back to him.

Once was enough; I didn’t know how strong the weed was, and I had heard that before continuing to consume drugs, you needed to know how strong they were or how they were hitting you.

The entire group swore to me I had to inhale, but at this time, I thought all of them were in this massive conspiracy to make me die. Maybe the paranoia came from the one uninhaled puff of weed. You see, the weed was stronger that I could handle.

A few days later, my wife told me how President Obama confessed to inhaling when he smoked weed, a jab at President Clinton’s statement that he didn’t inhale.

At that moment, I felt very close to 42. I understood what he said because I had done the same.

It made me trust him more and believe him when he said, “I did not have sexual relations with that woman, Ms. Lewinsky.”

It is with that same confidence I can stand here before you today and say, “I did not have smoking relations with that woman, Ms. María Juana.”