Lifestyle

The Official Stoner's Guide To Surviving Easter On 4/20

by Connor Toole

Depending on where your priorities lie, this upcoming Sunday is either a major religious event or an excuse to smoke as much weed as possible thanks to an arbitrary holiday.

This is the first time in over a decade that Easter has fallen on 4/20, and unless you were one of the cool kids in high school, chances are this is the first time you were aware of the crossover.

Admittedly, there's not a lot of crossover between the people celebrating the resurrection of Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ and people taking hits out of a bong with the same name.

However, there are undoubtedly a few people whose Easter baskets won't be the only thing filled with green grass.

Maybe there's a Bob Marley poster hanging next to a cross in your bedroom. Maybe the only way you can deal with relatives is to deal with them while high.

Maybe you just like a challenge. Regardless of why you're celebrating 4/20 on Easter, you need to have a plan to make sure you do it right. You might not be high all day, but we have a strategy guide for every situation just in case you are.

Here's how to survive:

Before Easter

This entire list is written with the assumption that you're celebrating Easter with a bunch of people, not by getting stoned in your room and watching "The Ten Commandments" on repeat.

Formulating a real Easter strategy is like playing Madden: you need to figure out if you're going to be conservative or aggressive. The path you take depends largely on how covert you want to be and how much you really care about what people think about you.

A conservative approach is going to require some planning. If all you have to smoke is regular marijuana from God's green earth, you're going to want to make sure you have eye drops and all the other stereotypical stoner supplies.

Scout out where you'll be ahead of time and find idea places for sparking up. If you're really trying to be covert, try to find a delivery method that doesn't involve a pungent odor and giant plumes of smoke.

The aggressive approach is slightly more simple: you show up really high and convince people that's your normal personality.

It helps to have a story about some life-changing experience that permanently altered your philosophy on life, but it's not required. This strategy is only recommended for experts.

Easter Eve

Let's assume that you took the conservative approach and are staying at your parents' house the night before; 4/20 isn't until tomorrow, but everyone else is asleep, it's almost midnight, and "Time Cop" is on TV. It's almost like Jesus wants you to spark up.

That's fine. This is a good chance for a trial run before the big day. If nobody comes down to investigate, you've done your job. Grab a snack and enjoy Jean Claude Van Damme's second-best film in peace. You deserve it. Also...

WHATEVER YOU DO, DO NOT BITE THE HEAD OFF THE LAMB MADE OF BUTTER THAT IS SITTING IN YOUR FRIDGE. You will not be able to find a new one in time.

Easter Morning

This should have probably been covered in the last section, but it's too late now. If you want to start Easter/20 off right, you need to start early.

Volunteer to wake up before everyone else in order to make coffee, put some food in the oven and get extremely high. Make sure you don't let that last part slip or else the entire operation will be ruined. This is key.

The earlier you get up the better, but don't get too ambitious. The last thing you want to do is run into the Easter Bunny while smoking a bowl. That's a situation that neither party wants to have to deal with.

When you're properly leveled up, throw in some cinnamon rolls and wish yourself luck. The day is just beginning.

The Easter Egg Hunt

Easter egg hunts are every smoker's best friend. It's a scavenger hunt for candy. It doesn't get much better than that.

The best part is you never know what you're going to get, which is perfect because you probably won't care as long as it tastes good.

There are Cadbury Eggs, pastel colored M&Ms, jelly beans and motherf*cking Peeps -- that's a list to be reckoned with.

In addition to curing your munchies, it's also a great opportunity to sneak away for a bit. Throw a few eggs in your basket then say, "I think I saw an egg in that bush over there" and wander off into a bush for a few minutes. You're going to need to get ready for what comes next.

Church

This is probably going to suck. If you're really ambitious, you can hit up the Easter Vigil the night before.

They also normally turn off all the light in the church and light a bunch of candles and that'd probably be pretty dope. However, it's also normally twice as long as a normal service and I wouldn't subject you to that.

I don't know what else to tell you. It's going to be really cramped, longer than necessary and God is going to be really disappointed in you. Good luck with this one.

Easter Dinner

The good news is there's food. Lots of food. If you're at a house that takes Easter seriously then you have plenty to look forward to: ham, mashed potatoes, various things utilizing vegetables and warm rolls with that lamb made of butter you (hopefully) didn't eat the night before.

As far as dessert is concerned, there will probably be something in the shape of a bunny, cupcakes with pastel frosting that will stain your teeth for a week and those Pillsbury cookies that used to come in a tube. Leave a little bit of room.

That's really all the good news there is. Easter dinner also involves conversation, and that's where things have the potential to go south very, very quickly.

Have a spiel prepared about your current job, relationship and aspirations and, if possible, learn ventriloquism so that you can make it sound like your senile uncle said something really offensive and draw attention away from yourself.

That's about it. Hopefully you manage to survive. If not, give it three days and everything should be fine.

Photo Courtesy: Xavier Rustul/500px