(Illegal) secrets in the attic

When I walked into my house yesterday, our framer said, “You’ll never guess what we found in the attic.”

My first thought was some kind of skeleton. I said, “Oh no. Is it something gross?”

He laughed. “No, nothing gross. We found a box of pot.”

Pot. As in marijuana. In my house.

Having not spent a lot of time (read: ANY time) around drugs, of course I wanted to see it. There it was in my kitchen: A wooden drawer holding a pipe, papers for rolling doobies, the name and address of someone who lived a few streets over, and a bread bag with pot inside.

Well, not all the pot was in the bag anymore. A breeze from the open windows blew a few tablespoons onto the floor.

Oh, I almost forgot the pot-growing guide. Classic.

A couple years ago, I found a hidden door at the back of our bathroom cabinet; it opened to a small, uninsulated room I had never seen before. But I didn’t go inside because there wasn’t a true floor and insulation was blown all over the place. Well, that’s where the pot was hidden. All this time, I naively thought, “Oh, so quaint—a secret door.” Doesn’t seem so precious now that I know the door was installed so some drug lord could hide his stash in the attic.

I called the police because I thought I might get in trouble if I tossed drug paraphernalia in the dumpster we share with neighbors. Before taking the box away, the officer mentioned that about 20,000 people in our town would have been pretty darn happy to find it. Now I kinda wish I would have asked about the street value—maybe I could have bought an appliance or two.

Not really, but still.

And I guess that’s the crazy story from our remodel. It’s definitely better than finding something dead upstairs. But I wish it would have been gold doubloons.  •