we need to address the elephant in the room (or the skunk in the car)

My brain will never be able to fully wrap around “legal recreational marijuana”. I spent too
much of my adolescents trying to hide the fact I was on drugs to be okay with open use. Living
directly north of Denver has made my brain hurt. Is it wrong? Is it okay? What do I tell my kids?
They still have the D.A.R.E. program in school but 4 hours south is the 4:20 Festival! Being a
parent is hard….Especially on Friday, April 20 th .
Combine this tidbit with the weird fact that I love the smell of skunks. I have since I was a little
kid. I was insanely happy when they changed rubber cement to smell like skunks to get kids to
quit huffing it. If we were driving by one I would get crazy excited and stick my head out the
window to sniff the air. I still do that to this day. My kids would watch me get happy and excited
so they would point out the smell in case I hadn’t noticed it yet. Aren’t they just so sweet 
trying to make mommy happy.
Right after Recreational Use became legal in Colorado, we started the joke “it smells like we
crossed the state line” whenever we would travel south to visit Denver. It was always an inside
joke between my husband and I until we were going to visit the new nephew. (SQUEE!!!! I LOVE
BABIES!!!!) The girls kept commenting about all the skunk smells that were happening. We
would just giggle and say we smelled it too. It was often enough that they stopped getting
excited and started getting confused. Very seriously one of them asked us “Have there always
been this many skunks in Denver?” My husband is the king of sarcasm and was able to pop back
right away “Nope. They migrate in on April 20 th ” I busted out laughing way harder than I
probably should. (I may have had a contact high from all the shops we were driving past.) I
turned around in my seat and told the girls we needed to address the skunk in the car.
I have never seen more conflicted faces. You would swear it was the moment they got told
Santa Claus isn’t real, or that mom is really the Tooth Fairy, or that goblins don’t steal their
Halloween chocolate (that’s really Dad, I don’t even like chocolate). Pot is a drug, and drugs are
bad. EVERYONE has told them that their whole life. As soon as they cross an invisible state line
it becomes illegal again. Soooooo….it’s bad there but not here????? How can it only be bad in
some places???? Next thing I know I’m comparing marijuana to MacDonald’s and Tequila. Not a
conversation I ever expected to have with my little girls. I also never thought I would have to
talk to them about NOT eating laundry soap but here we are, God Bless America.
I’m a good parent so I of course snapped a definite “NO!” when they asked if that meant they
could try it too. Not even when they turn 18. Drugs lead to pregnancy and horrible body odor.
It was their turn to laugh at me….