Ok, I admit it; that’s a shameless attempt to draw more visitors to my site. But seriously, I just don’t get the 4:20 thing. Not the pot-smoking; I understand that, although I’ve never had any desire to do it myself. It always seemed to make my friends mellow out, and I figured if there was one thing I already had plenty of, it was mellow. On the other hand, I think it’s fairly stupid for it to be illegal. There are far worse things you can put in your body, some of them legal at any age. Since I really don’t care about it one way or another, I think I can be objective about it.

What I don’t get is the desire to write 4:20 on every public surface from walls to speed limit signs. I used to drink a lot, and I’ve known plenty of people who get drunk, and none of us ever had any desire to get a can of spray paint and write Beer:30 or 90 Proof or Vodka Rocks! on a wall in an alley somewhere. We drank because it helped us have fun — or in some cases, to drown sorrows — but not because we were trying to make a point about anything to the rest of the world.

I see it drawn a lot of different places when I’m out walking Pepper, and it makes me wonder if there’s a parallel: is it simply a primitive need to mark territory, the way she thinks she has to pee on something every twenty yards or so, whether she’s got any in the tank or not?

It’d be tempting to say it’s because pot is illegal; but for most of the people doing the scrawling, I’ll bet alcohol is illegal too at their age, but you don’t see them proclaiming to the world that they drink. Why is pot-smoking in particular the one thing they’re so proud of that they need to advertise? Why is there no graffiti about meth use, pirating music, or breaking curfew?

I just don’t get it.