By Kate Belton
@k8beee
After a year-long hiatus, our favourite comedian/therapist/best friend, Kate Belton, is back! Need some advice yourself? Send in your #AskKate question to submissions@looselipsmag.com.
Dear Ask Kate,
I’m in a real pickle and don’t know what to do. I’m a 30 year-old adult and I have been smoking weed regularly since I was like 16, and almost daily since my early 20s. First things first: I LOVE WEED but I usually only smoke at night when I’m winding down. I’m not so much for a functioning daytime smoker because I have a demanding career and can’t be high all the time, obvs!
I smoke for a number of reasons: To help my brain quiet down for sleep, to help with my chronic pain and other things like period cramps, nausea, hangovers, increase in sex drive, and for fun because I LIKE WEED.
Anyway, I’ve been smoking in my apartment since my husband and I moved in like a million years ago. I have a little corner by the window, and I always blow my smoke outside. IT’S NOT LIKE IM SETH ROGAN ON THE COUCH WITH A BLUNT AT 2 PM. I think I’m really respectful about it! We’ve never had a complaint from the building and I’ve never been caught. During the summer I’ll go outside but in the rainy winter…NO THANKS!
Well, my husband suddenly won’t let me smoke in the house anymore and it’s been an ongoing fight forever. Why NOW? I’ve been doing this for years without a problem! Every time I try, he gets so annoyed with me, and I get angry back, and then I end up smoking outside in the pouring rain next to the cigarette chain-smoking lady from the 14th floor that has 24/7 pneumonia.
What do I do? Do I tell him to put a sock in it and let me go about my business in MY (our) HOUSE. Or, am I being a gross stoner teenager that needs to get over it and respect my partner? Hoping you side with the former, but I am open to any advice or compromise!
Love, Dazed and Confused
Dear Dazed and Confused,
First of all, how are you feeling about weed being legal now? I feel like there have been mixed reviews amongst the weed-smoking community, ranging from like “FUCK YA, FREEDOM DUDE” to “OK, weed isn’t cool anymore, thanks to the GOVERNMENT.” Also, good on you for not only LIKING, but also LOVING weed. I hate weed, but I like the smell… weed is kind of like douchey guys to me, like they smell so good but I don’t want to have them in my body.
When I was in my twenties I dated a guy who was a stoner. I hated it when he smoked weed in the car, mostly because he was behind the wheel of it and I was all “we don’t have time to stop at EVERY DQ, WE’RE LATE FOR EVERYTHING.” Anyway, we had other problems, too and eventually we broke up. He was living his life and I was living mine and I wasn’t about to try to change him into someone he was not (aka a responsible driver). So, we went our separate ways because we weren’t bound by holy matrimony.
You two are married, though. Whole different ballgame. AND you’ve been smoking in the house since before you were married, RIGHT? He can’t just change the rules on you like that, it’s not fair. I mean unless he has like raging asthma and needs one of those oxygen tanks and you’re like hotboxing the whole apartment like “WELL MAYBE YOU NEED A BETTER OXYGEN MASK, DEREK!” if that’s the case then yeah, you should go outside to smoke for sure.
I think that (ESPECIALLY now that it’s legal) he needs to relax and let you HAVE THIS. I’m sure he does stuff that annoys you, too, like not making the bed, or leaving his dishes in the sink or when you get up to go pee in the morning he farts in bed and then when you get back your room smells like farts and you’re like “seriously you couldn’t just hold that in until you went into the bathroom?”
Marriage is about compromise, and about each person loving the other regardless of the fact that sometimes they do stuff that you hate, like when they smoke in their cute little joint corner and respectfully blow it out the window and then are a sweet giggly delight to be around in the evenings. Or when they do gross bed farts: Iif he wants you to quit smoking inside he needs to quit farting inside. Sorry dude welcome to MARRIAGE.
Dear Kate,
My live-in boyfriend makes bad money moves. He’s got a great job where he makes a decent paycheque, but as a musician and video game enthusiast, he’s always buying himself new toys (guitar pedals, GUITARS, new video game consoles) instead of ever saving cash for our mutual benefit. Saving to travel, for instance. We have a trip to Mexico planned, and I’ve got some money socked away for my flight, but he can’t seem to get it together to hold up his end of the bargain. Every time he walks through the door with a new toy for himself, my visions of margaritas, rad vacation sex, and cacti dwindle. I feel like I’m living with a 17-year-old trapped in a 30-year-old’s body!
Love, Po’Boyfriend
Dear Po’Boyfriend,
OMG did you ever see that movie with Matthew Perry and Zach Efron called Seventeen Again? Zach Efron is SUCH a babe in that movie it’s actually insane. Also, as if they expected ANYONE to believe he was 17 in it- he was like 28 and pretending to be in grade 12. If I was his teacher I’d be like “COOL I’m gonna need you to stay in for detention and hold my hands and stare DEEP into my eyes with your eyes, it’s fine it’s part of the curriculum.” He was supposed to be a 40 something year old trapped in the body of a 17 year old in that movie, and if you haven’t seen it, honestly watch it, his biceps alone are worth the 105 min investment.
I wish I could find a man who’s like a 60 year old trapped in the body of a 28 year old, because maybe by 60 they grow out of having the spending habits of Macaulay Culkin in Home Alone.
But this isn’t about me. This is about you, and Mexico and sex and for some reason, “cacti”.
It sounds like the only way you’re going to get your boyfriend to save his money for your trip to Mexico is by doing it for him (I know, I hate that too, but this is the world we live in).
You guys live together, right? So I’m gonna go out on a limb and say you have bills that you share each month. Well girl, here’s how you bamboozle your way into making your bf save his money:
You tell him you need him to e-transfer you $50/ week (or $25, or $100, I don’t know what his paycheque is, you be the judge). Tell him a new monthly bill has been coming in that you weren’t expecting. Say it’s for something he’ll never look into, just string a bunch of official sounding words together like: “BC Provincial Revenue Expense Surplus Plan.” He will be a bit confused at first but just be as serious as you can, like be wearing glasses and a blouse when you say it, so he knows you mean business. Then, when you get the money, just toss it into a tax free savings account and let that shit grow into a sexy little Mexican VAYCAY.
And you don’t have to stop at that. Keep the fake bills coming as long as you want! Save for a house, save for retirement, just keep telling him that because of the (insert federal-political-party-he-dislikes here) you guys need to pay X amount by X date, and he needs to transfer you X many dollars so you can pay the bill and then do with those dollars what you will. I once bought an ex his birthday AND Christmas presents using this simple technique. You’re welcome, and have fun in MEXICO!
Kate Belton is a writer and standup comic who is newly sober, newly single, newly thirty and newly FINE WITH IT
