...the Great Magic Brownie Incident of the Early College Era.
Let's be clear. This story does NOT involve the wife, as I had yet to meet her. She would be mortified if any of you thought this tale had anything to do with her. So, leave her out of it and let's move along.
A college friend of mine wanted to try "magic brownies." (This, a friend of whom I have no contact with and does not know of this bloggly existence, so we can leave her identity out of this story. You can ask but I won't tell. My lips are sealed. Besides, none of you know her.) Now, I had never come across a magic brownie during my short tenure on the planet, so I had no idea what she wanted to do or how to proceed. Being a good friend, I wanted to support her effort and agreed to involve myself with this experiment.
To say we were uneducated is an understatement. Neither of us were well-versed in baking and we certainly were the blind-leading-the-blind when it came to this pleasant herb of the earlier generations. (To be sure, I would NEVER do this today. God knows what would be included with the pot of today. Rat poison would be the least of my concerns. Nieces and nephews: just say no to pot brownies. The brain cells you might kill are NOT worth it.)
How she got the ingredients, I do not know. I was in charge of getting the brownie mix. That was enough stress for me.
The mission was complicated by several factors. Since we lived in a dorm, we had to use the floor's community oven. Seriously. So, we would have to figure out a way to bake our brownies without raising suspicion. (Um, either of us baking should have raised many an eyebrow.) The second factor was that I had no brownie ingredients except the box of brownie mix. I didn't realize we would need eggs or oil or anything besides the content of the box. The third complicating factor was...well....
...we had this baggie of twigs and seeds and what-not and had no idea what to do with it. We kinda just stared at each other and shrugged shoulders. We figured this was how "this" was supposed to look.
We waited for the perfect morning. Of how we determined this, I do not remember. I just know that we decided one day to put our plan into action. I know it was a weekday. Why we didn't do this on a weekend is beyond me. I'm guessing it was a Wednesday, as based on the class we were supposed to attend, but this is a stab in the dark. (Hey, this was almost four decades ago. Gimme a break.) We decided to bake the brownies in the early morning, as most peers would still be sound asleep. To keep ourselves out of "trouble," we'd try the brownies for breakfast.
I found something in which to mix the brownies, pre-heated the oven, found a baking pan (thanks to whoever left that pan near the stove) and headed to her room. Giggling in a most very nervous manner, I held the bowl of brownie batter in front of her. She proceeded to dump the entire baggie of the seeds/sticks/pot into the mix.
Yup. Everything. Right.into.the.batter.
It never occurred to us this was weird or wrong or disgusting. We were novices, newbies, virgins. The lumpy mix gave us pause but nothing more. The lumpy, gross-looking Magic brownie mix was poured into the ungreased pan and shoved into the oven.
We were a nervous wreck while those things baked. Basket cases. What if someone woke up? What if someone asked what we were baking? What if someone asked us why the hell were baking a 6 AM? What if someone asked to share our brownies? What if we set off the fire alarm? We were so nervous that I couldn't stand to bake the brownies one second longer than deemed appropriate on the box. Although they still looked a wee bit soupy in the middle, I took them out and turned off the oven, retreating to her room before anyone was the wiser.
We were smart enough to know we couldn't carry around a pan of brownies... everyone would see us and want them. This was a secret mission. We couldn't share. A search around her room found a cardboard box from her Lipton tea bags. We dumped the tea and plopped the brownies into the now empty box.
Plopped is the perfect word. We couldn't cut them because (1) we didn't have a knife to cut them, and (2) they really were kinda mushy and weren't holding together. They looked disgusting. I mean, there were seeds and sticks poking out of the bakery item. I don't know if we thought the seeds and sticks would disintegrate while baking, but they did not. It looked like we had placed a tree branch in our brownies. I looked at her, she looked at me. Again, we shrugged shoulders.
It was then we realized we would need milk to wash these puppies down so we did what any college moron would do--we went to the cafeteria, brownies in hand, so we would have an unlimited supply of milk.
Unfortunately, several of our friends were morning persons who actually went to the cafeteria to eat breakfast and so, there they were. If we didn't sit with them, it would be weird... we always sat with them. So, we got our milk, sat down and put the box of soupy brownies in front of us.
For the record, I am sweating while typing this.
Seated at the table, my friend and I opened the box and started shoveling brownies in like there was no tomorrow. I'm guessing nervousness spend up our consumption. It looked like we were eating dirt. Someone asked what the hell we were eating and I muttered how we had tried to bake brownies for breakfast, adding that they were disgusting and we were too embarrassed to share. In our nervousness, she and I ate the entire batch of brownies.
The.entire.batch. Seeds. Sticks. Dirt-like magic mix.
I gotta say, I felt pretty sick after eating a half pan of brownies. It didn't matter what was or was not in that batch--it was the volume of brownies (and, level of terror) that led to my feeling a bit green in the gills. We threw away the tea box and visited with our friends, who were still eyeing us in a most suspicious manner. Hell, wouldn't you be suspicious if you just saw two friends eat an entire batch of homemade soupy brownies for breakfast?
I don't know what we thought would happen... but, nothing happened. I guess we though we would become instantly high (I told you, we had no idea what we were doing) but that was not the case. All we were was sick from eating too many brownies.
Sad and disappointed, we walked to class, wondering aloud why our experiment had failed.
Fast forward to a bit later in the day. Seated next to each other in another class, we remained disappointed. Why did people eat magic brownies? It made no sense to us. What a waste of time and money and....
...WHAM!
With no warning, I am telling you those magic brownies sprung into action and knocked us on our asses. I think I might have slid out of my chair, right in the middle of that class. I can't really recall. I do know is that we both started laughing.... and laughing... and laughing....
Our professor looked quite irritated. After all, we were snorting with laughter, unable to stop, interrupting the entire class. We were absolutely stoned. That's the only word I can use to describe our state of being. (Looking back decades later, I cannot believe what we did, as we really were good students who paid attention in class.) Too stoned--baked??!!--to stay seated in that little stuffy classroom with that old guy babbling about something or another, we stood up and walked out of class, right in the middle of class, laughing the entire way. I left my book and belongings behind, making our departure even that much weirder. We fell out the door and started down the sidewalk, no plan of what we were doing or where we were going.
So, where did we go? We went to the ceramics room.... and, laid on the floor. Laughing.
I'm sure we were a sight to behold. Two stoned girls, covered in clay dust, laying on the floor, laughing without seeming reason. People walked by. Lots of people walked by. We didn't care.
Cheech and Chong would have been proud.
Once bored with clay dust, we worked our way back to the cafeteria for lunch. Probably a bad idea, considering how crowded the cafeteria is at lunch time and considering we looked like the ceramics studio had blown up. Seated with our friends, we couldn't stop laughing. We could barely hold our heads up. Everyone just stared at us, which made us laugh even harder.
I honestly can't recall what we did for the rest of the day. I assume we had a good time and that we continued laughing and that we eventually took a nap or communed with nature or went back to the ceramics studio. The only thing I do remember is saying that I NEVER wanted to make or eat magic brownies again.
Ever.
She agreed. No more magic brownies. Ever.
I am pleased to say that I've held true to my word. No more magic brownies have come into my life. I think I might run screaming away if they did. I'd bet dollars to donuts that she has steered far away from anything of the kind, too. The only brownies I am eating these days are gluten free and far from harvesting any plants. The brownies of my world today are probably smothered in some form of gluten free ice cream, not in seeds and sticks.
Magically baked, indeed. No more magic for me.
I'm glad camera phones didn't exist back in the day.
Hell, I'm glad digital anything didn't exist.
I'm glad that we stayed on campus and didn't get ignorant enough to do anything but stay on campus.
I'm glad we walked out of that class.
I'm glad we didn't flunk that class.
I'm sad we perpetuated the belief that art majors are stoners.
I'm glad we went to the art department and not the Dean's Office.
I'm super glad none of our friends at the breakfast table demanded any brownies.
I'm glad that we tried the experiment and that we lived to tell about it without killing too many brain cells.
I'm glad that the effects wore off with nary an incident.
I'm glad this happened decades ago, not in today's era.
I'm glad I have avoided magic brownies since that day.
I'm profoundly relieved that the statute of limitations is long gone, so I can share this story without incident. Well, besides potential judgment and a whole lot of laughter.
I'm sad that I suck at baking but I'm really glad that I'm good at not being baked.
Gluten free brownie, anyone? No magic, no gluten, no laughter involved...guaranteed.
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