“Maureen Dowd is kind of an idiot” may sound like a strange way to start of an apologia for Maureen Dowd, but it’s true. And it’s important to get it out of the way before we get into the weeds. And by the weeds, we mean the hotel room.
That is the hotel room Ms. Dowd is being ridiculed for this week.
To those unfamiliar with Ms. Dowd, she works for The New York Times, where she takes perfectly fine words and strings them into terrible sentences. For a living. On Tuesday, those words start a little something like this: “Don’t Harsh Our Mellow, Dude.”
We’re not touching that.
But the rest goes on about how she accidentally ate 16 doses of marijuana in one chocolate bar while reporting on weed legalization in Colorado. It wasn’t properly marked, she said. And the results? Well, they were horrible. Of course.
“I felt a scary shudder go through my body and brain,” Ms, Dowd writes. “I barely made it from the desk to the bed, where I lay curled up in a hallucinatory state for the next eight hours. I was thirsty but couldn’t move to get water. Or even turn off the lights. I was panting and paranoid, sure that when the room-service waiter knocked and I didn’t answer, he’d call the police and have me arrested for being unable to handle my candy.”
“I strained to remember where I was or even what I was wearing, touching my green corduroy jeans and staring at the exposed-brick wall,” she continued. “As my paranoia deepened, I became convinced that I had died and no one was telling me.”
Sounds horrible, right?
Well folks are none too impressed with her experiment. She’s being pretty roundly mocked, actually.
But title aside, don’t knock it ’till you try it: Getting jacked up alone in a hotel room is just about the worst thing in the world.
I’ve been there. So has Tucker. Your gramps, too, I’m sure, with a warm bottle of grandpa’s crying whiskey.
I have seen a snail crawling on the edge of a straight razor. And it wasn’t a dream. Or a nightmare. It was an airport hotel room in Newark, N.J. It was Dec. 25. It was miserable outside. It was late.
Now Newark, N.J. is a real treasure. And by that, I mean it is the heinous anus of the Garden State. A special place. And on that particular night — notice it is Christmas night — the hotel bars were closed, and Newark and I were together and alone, protected from the populace by miles of fencing, highways and poorly lit parking lots.
Will Ferrell was there too. On the TV in green drag. Which was funny.
And so was Jack. He’d been stowed away since Boston in my luggage. And after a few hours snuggled all up for the trip, Mr. Daniels was warm.
Oh, and there was the ice machine and the little plastic bag one puts in the bucket when one needs more but doesn’t want to be gross about it. Spent a lot of time with that ice machine.
So I guess I wasn’t alone after all.
Hell, by the time my travel mates showed up well after midnight, I was content with my new friends, having evolved beyond human company.
Which brings us back to Ms. Dowd.
I’ve never been able to share my experience with others. To talk about it: What happened that night, and how I felt on the plane in the morning. But thanks to her, I feel empowered. I can come out. And before you look back on the good life you’ve lived, know this: Someone you know has gotten f**ked up alone in a hotel room too, probably without Will Ferrell or even an ice machine for company. Maybe a sibling. Maybe a boss. Probably grandpa.
Fortunately, that doesn’t happen much to me these days because The Daily Caller won’t buy me airplane tickets to write about stoners in Colorado.
And there lies one thing we’d like to chide Colorado and the Greying Lady on: There’s no point to legalizing marijuana for people over 21. If you’re under 21 and haven’t smoked pot, you’re a loser; if you’re over 21 and smoke pot, you’re a loser.
Tucker knows we don’t have to fly anywhere to know that.
So I think I’ll just stay here and drink.
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