When I Was High: Brilliant Ideas in the Fields of Restauranteering, Musical Enrichment, and Streaming Reality Food-Based Entertainment

These cats, who were hopefully paid for their work, are portrayed in images displayed on the Canva graphic design tool, purportedly from Getty Images, information I'm sharing with you per a meandering Canva subscriber agreement. The cat with the bowtie is obviously the handsomest (and most dapper).

I had a whole paragraph about why I don’t need your judgment in the year 2026, writing from a state where recreational pot is legal and from the mindset of someone who knows too much about how bad alcohol can be for people you love, but hardly anyone is a prohibitionist, but I’m not doing it. Because pot is great. Well, it’s great for me. I do know people who should not indulge. 

For me, it’s better than any anti-anxiety medication I’ve tried, it’s better than Zofran for the intense nausea I get at times, it helps me sleep, and if I just want a nice night in, I’d much rather be slightly high than a little bit drunk, which doesn’t much agree with me. When my many menopausal friends are looking for solutions to the endless list of indignities we’re apparently supposed to suffer as women of a certain age, it’s hard not to point to the thing that has helped me more than all the other things. 

ANYWAY. Moving beyond the cursory list of things THC can do that feels a lot like the list of things I feel compelled to share so you don’t think I’m a pothead, I’d be remiss in pointing out how absolutely brilliant I become after approximately 5 grams of THC has magically metabolized. The ideas I have! Here are three — please don’t steal them. These are all part of my retirement planning. 

Potluck

Artwork created on Canva, with stock images from Getty, but I don't know if I really believe Getty paid for this image of a cat in a chef get-up, but OK, Canva.

So, I was watching Downie, as I often do, and he and his buddy Jeff were in Spain, where they enjoyed some tapas at a place set up buffet style. You pick your dishes, keep track of the little toothpicks stuck in each of them, and then at the end, the cashier adds them up and off you go. So smart. 

Well, why not blatantly steal this idea (which I’m sure is not exclusive to this restaurant or to tapas in general), but give it that old Midwestern spin? Potluck is basically the same idea, but with selections you’d find at a standard issue Midwest buffet, except not while balancing a floppy paper plate in one hand and your Yuengling Light in the other, roasting under a relentless, blinding sun on a sticky August afternoon in a nondescript corner of Ohio while a distant cousin goes on, at length, about how many packages of cream cheese she was softening at 6 a.m. that morning in order to create her special potato-cheese casserole. Or maybe we should incorporate these elements and make it more authentic? Character actors mixing with patrons stuffing their faces with deviled eggs, hashbrown hot dish, and 7-ish layer dip? 

The main point is that sometimes what you want for dinner is a little bit of a lot, and Potluck is there for you. My expanded idea includes space for regulars to vote on monthly specials (ideally, authentic family potluck recipes passed down through the ages) and a food truck that I’ll talk about more in the next section. 

Pop-up Karaoke

Again, thanks for your brilliant graphic design tools that even idiots like me can figure out, Canva, and for the usage of these stock images, and honestly, why isn't my job taking photos of dashingly dressed felines and posing them in impossibly adorable ways?

You know what’s better than karaoke? Unexpected karaoke. What if you wandered out of the neighborhood Chili’s at 11:07 p.m. because the employees have eventually strongly implied they’d like to go to their homes at some point but your chatty table of middle-age gals just won’t STFU, but you weren’t actually done with your evening yet? But then, out in the parking lot, you see it: an unassuming vendor tent where people of a similar demographic have gathered around a 60-year-old man in Dockers who, let’s be honest, is simply caterwauling to the sort-of tune to “Take It Easy” by the Eagles circa 1972. And it’s great.

Who even knew there would be karaoke in this parking lot right now? That there could be? Pop-up Karaoke fills a need you didn’t even know about, because in reality, you probably need to be singing right now, but you totally aren’t. This idea has exceptionally low overhead, too, thanks to the influx of affordable, portable karaoke machines available to you on the internet, and it’s free entertainment for everyone in the vicinity. Who doesn’t love a random, impromptu concert being aggressively performed at you by absolutely amateurs? I guess people could rent Pop-up Karaoke, too, but I like the surprise element quite a bit. 

Combine this with the Potluck: The Food Truck concept (self-explanatory) and it’s a good night out for everyone involved (and even for those who didn’t mean to become involved). 

“Baked Off” (“Drunk History” Meets “Nailed It”)

You know, mostly I'm impressed by how many of these kinds of Getty-procured stock images Canva has on hand. This cat is obviously in a gang and he can cook, so again, I'm wondering if my career has been ill-directed thus far. Should I go back to school to become whatever you need to be in order to meet the cats who can both bake and who wear the corpses of their defeated enemies around their necks?

Here, instead of regular people badly making complicated things (or drunk people telling complicated stories badly), very, very high people make simple things — also badly. The show would feature total amateurs, basically normal people doing their best, but occasional guests can include professional bakers, people in the marijuana industry, or localized episodes might include bakers from a specific neighborhood in a city (Portland?). 

Contests can feature technical challenges that are simply “follow these directions for making brownies,” but also, hosts would mess with contestants by giving them the wrong (obvious) ingredients and other lighthearted trickery. A mad scientist challenge could include a pile of ingredients that contestants need to assemble into whatever sounds good (high people can become very creative chefs). 

I have lots more notes here, but I will spare you the details. It’s more of this kind of thing, and it’s fun! I would watch this. Is this on already? How is it not? Anyway, I truly think states that have legalized pot might advertise. Oh, I also have notes about safety — contestants who are high really shouldn’t be using real ovens, so there would be operators who follow the directions of the contestants when it comes to using equipment. 

So, there you have it! I’ll share more of my brilliant ideas, architected while I was high, at a later date.