Justin admits to being prude when it comes to smoking pot, but that doesn’t mean he’s never tried it.

I tried snorting Adderall once when I was a freshman in college, but I sucked at it. In fact, I’m so bad at pills that I even chew my Tylenol when I have a headache or a hangover. I have no use for drugs in my life. Martini’s from Billy B’s are my Xanax. Vodka and Redbulls are my molly. Tequila is my meth.

Sure, I say no to drugs now, but that doesn’t mean I haven’t experimented. When I was in 11th grade, I not only tried pot for the first time, I showed up to school stoned. Sorry, Mom and Dad.

My friend Mila came up with the idea. Mila and I were each others sidekicks back in the day. We were always doing things we shouldn’t be doing. We’d skip school and use our lunch money to take the bus to The Mall at Steamtown and then steal change from the wishing fountain for bus fair to return home. We’d make fun of our German teacher for having small feet, asking her if she was born premature. Mila once lied to a guy she had sex with and told him that she needed money for an abortion so we could skip school and go shopping in New York City. Fake abortions are the only time I’m pro-choice.

Anyway, one day we decided to get high. Our truant officer had his eyes on us for skipping school so often, so we decided to forge a note that would excuse us for the day after second period. Unfortunately, the vice-principal, who collected notes to get out of school early, was also on to us.

“I’ll let you out early, but you have to return before the end of the day or I’m calling your parents,” our vice-principal said.

By 9:45 a.m., Mila and I were on our way to pick up two friends who didn’t go to school that day. Then we drove to Scranton for marijuana.

The guy who sold us the weed owned a nail/tanning salon in South Side.

“I’ll go in by myself. I don’t want to put attention on us,” Mila said. She was in there for half an hour before she came out with the weed. I’m not sure exactly what she did in there or how she paid for it, but she didn’t ask anyone to chip in, so I didn’t ask any questions.

The four of us hotboxed my Jeep in a grocery store parking lot for about an hour. I wish I knew what we talked about in that moment. The only thing I remember is that I laughed harder than I ever laughed before. The laughter stopped when we realized it was past one o’clock and we had to get back to school.

We hit I-81 north in a blazing fury; stoned, nervous, paranoid. By the time we got back, there were 10 minutes until last period started. My two friends who skipped school that day realized they were just showing up to school at 1:30 p.m. — stoned out of their minds. They went to their classes anyways without a care. I started freaking out about going to mine.

“I can’t do this, he’ll know. Mr. S will know,” I said to Mila, panicking. Mr. S was my advanced composition teacher and a total hippy who grew up in the 1960s. If anyone was going to smell pot on me and pick up on warning signs, it was Mr. S.

Mila slapped me across the face and told me to get my shit together. Then we both laughed about it.

I decided to just lay low and avoid eye contact. Of course, the one day of the year he kneeled down next to me to talk about my writing assignment had to be the day I was stoned at school.

He didn’t act like anything was out of the ordinary. I figured maybe he was being polite. Then I thought maybe he was immune to the smell from being a hippy. And then I thought maybe he was waiting until the end of class to call the cops on me.

When the bell rang, Mr. S called my name to stay behind. He just stared at me as the rest of the students dismissed. Mr. S finally broke his silence by saying, “Somebody had a good time today.”

That was all.

I went to meet the friends I got high with. As we walked down the hall, we laughed that we got away with leaving school to get stoned. We were young, innocent and stoned. And in that moment, I swear we were infinite.