Oxymoron

Oxymoron (ox-y-mo’-ron): Placing two ordinarily opposing terms adjacent to one another. A compressed paradox.

They called me “Giant Shorty.” I was 6’4” tall and my ‘you know what’ was 2” long. I was the tallest man in Castroville, and the shortest too. They could’ve called me “Jumbo Shrimp” but that was a worn-out oxymoron. “Keep it simple” was the rule of thumb. Anyway, half the people in Castroville had never seen a shrimp. They were too busy making artichoke fritters for the tourists who stopped there on their way to Monterrey to visit the aquarium and the tawdry souvenir shops and hippie crafts shops built on the back of Steinbeck’s Cannery Row.

I was working in my laboratory overtime trying to make THC-infused artichokes—“wicked good” as they would say in Maine. Everybody else in the valley grew artichokes, but I grew artichokes and pot. I was experimenting with three strains of pot: “Gold Medal Haze,” “Pinky Dinky,” and “Boom-Boom Banshee.” I imported “Banshee” from Ireland. My mule, Timmy O’Hanahan, put life and limb on the line twice a year to supply me, risking the sea voyage across the Atlantic. He travelled the course of the Pilgrims to Boston and then hopped a bus like Jack Keroac to San Francisco, and then, hitch-hiked to Castroville with a 100 pound odor-proofed laundry bag filled with “Boom-Boom Banshee.” Timmy told me when people asked what was in the bag, he’d answer “A wee bit o’ laundry.”

“Banshee” was by far the best pot to make my THC-infused artichokes from. When ground up, it mixed readily with the rich soil of the Salinas Vally and was almost 100% THC. However, I couldn’t get the artichoke plants to suck it up. I needed a remedy, so I texted my friend from college RFK Jr. He was an expert on “The Herb” and probably had the answer. I got an answer almost immediately: “Hey Stupid Smart-ass your dimwitted-genius makes a mockery of Einstein and Abraham Lincoln combined. Pot-infused artichokes! Like WOW! Im-pure genius man! Here’s what you do: Run one pound of weed through a blender, mixing it with 5 cups of “Miracle Gro” plant food and 29 gallons of birch water, and spray the concoction on the artichoke plants. They will absorb it through their leaves. I use this recipe with opium on my organic carrots, and they make for sweet dreams every time I munch one!”

I took RFK Jr’s advice. My “Artichoke Boom-Boom Banshee Fritters” are the POT at the end of the rainbow. People come all the way from Japan to sample them.

When you ingest them, the fritters fly through the bright midnight of your brain. You will see the future-present and follow the path to everywhere via nowhere, relaxing in an anomic revery, with reason’s barriers beautifully broken by the battering ram of your THC-soaked mind. You’ll wail like a banshee lost in time’s shimmering mists, and laugh like Santa after a shot of akvavit.

Like “WOW!” man.