HBO is showing "Up In Smoke" a Cheech and Chong collaboration on their search for pot. The first time I saw this in a theater I was laughing the whole time, and it still cracks me up.

There was a time when I was between husbands-- way back in the dark ages-- when I worked with a nurse who liked to party. She invited stogy-- Pollyanna-ish me to a party at her house.

I arrived on Saturday night to find the door locked but could hear voices inside and little wisps of smoke seeping out through the keyhole and under the door. They let me in, and everybody was smoking pot, and mellowed out. Through a thick haze of smoke, I was shown how to inhale and hold the smoke. I was choking and coughing. There was so much smoke in the room I could've just taken a few deep breaths and done as well.

I like that stuff, but was too dense to know how to ever get in the loop to buy any, and too law abiding to break the law (what a putz I was) so I tried it twice and that was it. Now as an old lady with arthritis and other ailments, I wish I had a joint to get that mellow feeling. I don't drink alcohol or take pills, but boy, pot would be great to ease those aches and pains. I wish it were legal.

susil