During a particularly grueling comedic open mic night last week I heard a fresh-faced 20-something start a set with, “Don’t you hate it when you run out of weed?”

The subsequent joke isn’t important because this alone made me and the person on my left simultaneously chuckle. Unprompted, my anonymous drinking buddy leans over and whispers, “How does someone manage to run out in this day and age?”

I let out another guffaw and nod emphatically. I don’t know his particular story but I can guarantee the comedian on stage has never experienced a true dry spell. Witnessing the war on drugs in my early teens, I’ve maintained a holistic approach to drug use since the 90s. Disinterested in needles or cocaine, I focus on botanical methods of relaxation. The benefit to this approach is the network stays mostly clean and, it seems, partially legal. The down side is managing to make the right connections. Fairly low on the totem pole back then, I still managed to score pot regularly. Just enough busting of mid-level dealers sometimes affected the supply chain but the only people that went completely dry were the endest of end users – mid-country suburbanites.

In Seattle in 2017, the premise of not having pot when you need it sounds completely canned. Delivered by a long-haired nouveau hipster in drop-crotch pants only makes it more overwhelmingly silly. On the bright side, this idiosyncrasy led to a bonding moment. With an actual human! Maybe I’m not as alone in this world as it feels. After all, we all mellow with age. For some, this means descending into a gelatinous mass of lipids and Netflix. Others embrace the new tempo as a more complex challenge. How to enjoy life in the face of entropy? Abandoned by the vigor of youth, I’m almost certain the answer lies in collaboration. Until then, at least we have plenty of weed.