when I was about 16-17, I did a lot of acid (LSD – before the days of X this was the drug of choice for those of us who wanted to enjoy the beauty of the universe)

Most times, it was me and Nikki, my bestest friend, sitting on the black fuzzy couch with cigs, OJ and water, listening to music. As far as we could see, nothing in the world was better than listening to music while tripping. We would listen and talk all night. Sometimes we talked about deep meaningful, figuring-out-life kind of stuff, and sometimes we just got downright stupid. One night we spent the entire evening pretending to be two guys from a british band called the Stranglers; not realizing until morning that if we were such, we’d probably speak with british accents.

One particular night, we were sitting on the couch, listening to music quietly and looking out the window. My apartment was on the top floor of a converted house at the end of a street which meant that every car that came down the road made bars of multi-colored light shoot across the ceiling, pause and then bend in one direction or the other before sailing past the room. We loved watching the lights…

I remember I was idly talking about a mutual friend while Nikki was looking down at the street. A car came up from the side and though I was distracted by the lights up above, Nikki watched the car stop dead in front of our place.

As I was babbling mindlessly, looking up at the ceiling, I realized that Nikki was no longer listenning. I stood quietly, while she peered intently out the window.

I heard a car door slam and looked out just in time to see the car drive off with tires squealing.

Nikki looked up at me somehwhat amused and said, “that man just stole Morris’ stereo”

Morris was my downstairs neighbor.
Now, I was well aware of the fact that Morris was a drug-dealer, but he was polite enough, kept his business quiet and low-key so we were never bothered by him. Like many dealers, I knew he sampled his own wares and I tried to stay cordial but distant with him. I had no ill-will towards Morris. I had no love for Morris either.

“hmmm,” I said, “are you sure?”

“Yes,” she said, starting to laugh, “that car drove up, a guy jumped out and ran downstairs. He came back with a stereo and they drove off.”

“huh”

There wasn’t much else to say.

We continued on our exploration of the joys of mental exaggerations and sensory crossover.

After about four hours, I was tripping pretty good, enjoying myself fully by dancing around the apartment and making nonsensical noises when there was a rather abrupt and loud noise at the front door. It took me a moment to figure out someone was knocking or rather pounding on it. I looked at Nikki quizzicly.

“It’s probably Morris” she said, sotto voce.

“What the heck does he want?” I said, a little irritated.

“he probably wants to ask you about his stereo” she said, beginning to break up laughing again.

Oh yeah…. without thinking any further on the matter I walked up to the door.

“Who is it?” I sang out as sweetly as I could.

“It’s Morris, your neighbor” a somewhat angry voice answered back. Judging by the tone, I knew I did not want to face this person.

“you can’t come in,” I said.

“I don’t want to come in!” he shouted, giving me grave doubts as to his honorable intentions, “I just want to talk to you!”

“so talk” I said, thinking that this was a somewhat obvious thing to say but hey, if he needed my permission to talk to me through my door I was willing to give it to him.

“I can’t talk through a door!” he yelled, exasperated.

“you still can’t come in” I said without further explanation.

Nikki exploded into silent laughter and attempting to keep it covered she ended up falling on the floor butt-first.

“I just want to talk to you! I want to ask you something!” he shouted, and banged on the door for emphasis.

“So , ask,” I said, thinking that now this was just getting silly – telling someone that they were allowed to talk to you seemed quite ludicrous, especially after you’d already told them to go ahead and talk to you.

“Man, I don’t want to talk standing out here in the hallway! Just open the door so I can talk to you!” he shouted, sounding quite fed up.

“I’m sorry,” I said, “but you still can’t come in. Have a nice day” then I walked away to another room and forgot all about his existance.

I wandered back into the room with a glass of OJ in my hand to find my bestest friend doubled up on the floor with tears streaming down her face.

“DUde! Are you alright?” I said, running up to her. This looked serious.

“Oh my god!” she yelled, “I can’t believe you!” she gasped for air “you just kept telling him he couldn’t come in! Ohmygod!”

“well geez,” I said “I didn’t feel like dealing with him. If you don’t want to deal with something, you don’t have to open the door”

Enlightenment.

I have never had a problem telling people to go away ever since then.