My mother calls from Ireland. I’m in Canada. We had this conversation while I was getting ready to go out to dinner.
Me: “Ou, did I tell you my plant has started to grow?”
Her: “No. A plant on your balcony?”
Me: “Yeah.”
Her: “Is it a cocaine plant?”
Me: “No. It’s a spinach plant.”
Her: “Oh, I thought you were growing drugs.” (she’s kidding at this point)
Me: “No…also I don’t think people grow cocaine.”
Her: “Yes, they do!”
Me: “No, I don’t think it’s cocaine you’re thinking of.”
Her: “It is! They grow cocaine. Or heroin. Maybe it’s heroin.”
Me: “I don’t think people grow heroine. Do they? I’d Google that but I don’t want ‘How to make cocaine’ in my Google history. Wait…” To The Canadian One “Do people grow heroin?”
Him: “It’s an opiate.”
Me, relaying information: “He says it’s an opiate.”
Him: “It’s made from a poppy.”
Me: “It’s made from a…wait…no…a poppy? That doesn’t sound right.”
Mam: “No no, I think people grow cocaine here.” (in Ireland)
Me: “I think it’s marijuana.”
Mam: “People round here don’t call it that. They call it cocaine.”
Me: “No, cocaine is different. People grow marijuana.”
Mam: “They must grow cocaine too. No one calls it marijuana.”
Me: “I don’t think people in Ireland grow cocaine.”
Mam: “They do.”
The Canadian One’s phone beeps indicating we were leaving.
Me: “I gotta go to dinner.”
After a brief discussion of how I’m going to eat dinner at a patio restaurant and how I’d confused her by saying originally ‘We’re going to eat on a patio’ and hadn’t made it clear that we were actually going out to dinner and not eating on our own patio, I said goodbye to my mother and went to dinner.
Moments into the meal I get this text from my mother:
‘Cannabis.’
NOW it all makes a lot more sense…
…But now leads me to wonder who exactly my mother’s friends are!
Just to note: The original title for this post was ‘My Mother on Drugs’, but I thought that gave the wrong impression of her!
For more Conversations with my Mother, check out:
The Ketchup War 