Living the High Life...

When Life Gets You Down…Hell, read this and you won’t be anymore…

In the realm of stories that only happen to me (and “Lonnie” now by association), this is truly the weirdest, most upsetting at the time, and funniest of them all.  Thankfully no one died, or got arrested, or pregnant.  Let me set the stage:

We had driven the 8 hours from Wichita to Colorado back in November.  No one really chooses to do this, but it was cheaper than flying.  We went mostly at night so the barren, brown wasteland of West Kansas was hidden from sight.  And so the kids, the dog, and Grandpa would sleep (we got 2 out of 3).  We were going to Colorado to see The Book of Mormon (epic!) which was “Lonnie’s” birthday present to me, and to pick up a variety of items that we had left in our Colorado house while we were in Alabama.  “Lonnie” had lent his wood working tools to a friend and our house in Peyton still had most of our décor and furniture.  We were planning on getting our things and checking on our rental houses.

The next morning, as we drove through the Black Forest, the devastation from last summer’s fire was evident and upsetting.  All those homes and people simply burned out.   Thankfully our house had been saved and the renters had everything in tip top shape.  Things got brighter as we headed toward Peyton.  I was feeling a bit nostalgic as we pulled into our old neighborhood.  The beautiful view and stillness of the valley were ever present.  “Lonnie” and I had Orion with us, having left everyone else with Grandma (best idea ever!).  Lonnie had called our renter earlier in the week to let him know we were coming out.  He never called back, but we knew he occasionally went back to Florida during the year.  As we pulled up the driveway we noted things that would need to be done: driveway grating, some tree trimming.  The house was quiet and no cars around.  I noticed a new door on the barn and “Lonnie” figured our tenant, who worked on cars, had put in a paint sprayer.  I saw some insulation propped on the basement window and was curious.  A few other little things looked different and I started getting nervous.

As we walked up to the house it appeared that all the lights were on, the pond was running, and other things were powered up.  Interesting for a vacant house.  It took a few tries to open the front door, and for a moment we were worried the locks had been changed, but no, “Lonnie” is just a dork.  As we entered the house, the warmth and smell of the tropics hit us like a wall.  A man suddenly came out of one bedroom and was talking on a cell phone.  He no espeaka the English.  In my butchered Spanish I told him that we were the owners of the house and wanted to get some of our things.  He motioned that he was going to call someone to help.  The kid, Alex, couldn’t have been more than 20 years old and was a bit freaked out that we were there.  All told, we were a bit freaked out that HE was there! 

All the furniture was in the main living area, but things were tidy and not abused.  I couldn’t figure out what was wrong until we went downstairs and looked in our mechanical room.  That’s when the actual enormity of the situation became apparent.  Thousands of dollars of professional electrical grid wiring and paneling had been added to our house!!  “Lonnie” and I looked at each other and we realized what was going on with the smell, the locked rooms, and the power.  Wait for it.....

Our house was being used as a colossal indoor marijuana cultivation plant!!!

At this point you are probably all saying:
1. Thank God that’s not us
2. Did we ever lend Kelly anything and is it in that house?
3. Did you scarf any joints?

Standing in that mechanical room, I started to shake.  Orion was still upstairs with the Spanish kid Alex (he wasn’t Mexican, his dialect was unfamiliar to me-maybe Cuban), our stuff reeked of frat house reefer and we were now in a very dangerous situation because we knew the kid had called someone.  Remember, this was all before everything was legal.  We tried getting into our garage and family room but they were locked.  “Lonnie” said, “I think we need to get out of here now”.  He tried calling our tenant, but our cell reception in Peyton was always sketchy.  I walked upstairs and took Orion outside to prevent him from a contact high while Lonnie was attempting to talk with Alex.  All I could think of while I was outside crying and trying to keep cool for Orion was “I saw the guy had a pellet gun, I know where the pellets are, how many people could I take out from the porch?”  Yes, in the heat of the moment I went on the offensive.  I did all the zombie-apocalypse scenarios at that house…No one was going to ruin my house and get out alive!

I went back inside and “Lonnie” had spoken to our tenant. He started asking me, “What do you want from the house right now?”  I started listing off things that I couldn’t bear to have ruined or destroyed if this whole situation went south, so we started grabbing things off the walls and taking them to the truck.  As we were doing that, a SUV pulled up (I reminded myself of the gun location) and 2 men got out.  Both were pleasant and spoke English.  We explained that this was our house; we wanted to get our stuff and needed to get in the locked rooms.  They readily complied and it was in the garage that we saw the depth of the operation.  Our entire garage and barn, plus our twins old bedroom were growing rooms.  Hundreds, yes hundreds, of 7’ tall pot plants being lovingly grown under heat lamps (which necessitated that new power grid).  In the family room were racks and racks of drying pot plus an incubator for clones (clones are baby plants, I only know this because I’ve been googling all things pot, not because I’m some streetwise dealer.  I also know that there was at least $300K of Grow in the house, because I did the math!). 

I’m not sure the point at which I went from crying to laughing about the situation (with a touch of the munchies in there as well), but I pretty quickly realized for myself that I needed to lock it up (Lonnie is always cool, but I could tell he was furious) and play it cool.  I smiled, asked questions about the plants, and commented on how good they looked to one of the men.  He seemed very proud of his crop.  They had insisted the operation was all legal for medical marijuana (which was OK back in November) and certainly didn’t act like petty criminals.  Big time criminals maybe, but petty no.  The men helped us take things out of the house and load our trailer.  While the men were doing that, I snuck through the house and took pictures with my camera phone, totally playing the spy and marveling at the fact that I stayed calm enough to remember to get evidence.  They should make a movie about this.  I will be played by Nicole Kidman. 

After a few hours, we finally loaded all we could fit into the trailer.  There were still tons of our things left at the house, but we just didn’t have room.  Orion had been put in the truck early on in the situation and given his computer, so he was a happy and drug-free boy.  I was getting a headache, both from the pot and the stress, but I made sure we even took the light fixtures out that we had custom fitted in the house.  Hell, I found a screwdriver and took off my decorative wall plates from the light switches!  I walked around the house in a daze (so this is what getting high is like) not knowing what to mourn--the abuse of our home or the fact that I was seeing a drug ring up close.  I actually, at one point, started talking TO the house, apologizing that it had been so badly used.  Yup, went a little crazy there.  I am so white bread sometimes. So many questions kept coming up in my head “What was this guy (our tenant) planning to do if we came back to the house as we originally had planned, how are we going to get this smell out of everything, this guy better just buy the house now, what happens if he won’t buy it, will we get busted for the pot flakes in the carpet runner I just stuck in the trailer?”  So many things just spinning in my brain, but I just remembered to smile, be courteous, and act cool.  I could totally work for the DEA.

As we headed back to Grandma’s house, “Lonnie” and I held hands and talked in amazement at how this type of thing doesn’t happen to normal people, it happens to us.  Why do we always have adventures like this?  The entire trailer smelled like a frat house by the time we got to Grandma’s.  Of course, the risk to our military careers was first and foremost (since Colorado may do what it wants, but Uncle Sam still says nay, otherwise we would have been demanding our cut!!).  We both called our commanders for full disclosure. “Lonnie’s” commander didn’t think there was a problem since “pot’s legal in Colorado, right?” and my commander laughed, then quickly apologized and was sympathetic.  Well, at least we won’t get fired.  Thankfully since then, the tenant has signed a purchase agreement and has cleaned all the pot from the house (we had a friend go inspect and all is good).  We will be heading back this month to do a final move of the rest of our stuff.  We’ll see if the mattresses can ever be used again.  (Editor's note: we got all our stuff out of the house 2 weeks ago, Alex is Cuban--my suspicion confirmed--the mattresses are still suspect and one fridge can't be opened without summoning drug dogs from a mile away...otherwise all is well).

With my little “almost cancer” scare a few weeks ago, I now can add “was involved in a cartel” off my bucket list.  Didn’t even know it was there.