Welcome to “Is It Worth the High?”, where our writers see newly released movies, listen to the latest album drops, and try other experiences while high to determine whether they’re worth your time, money, and most importantly, your cannabis buzz. This week, Dante Jordan pays a visit to his local aquarium for some elevated fish gazing.
Products Enjoyed: Swisher Sweet (per usual) of Sour Diesel
High Experienced (1-10): 7.8-ish. Let’s just say I was high enough to wonder if a fish in water is considered dry. I’m still not sure.
I love animals, but loving them doesn’t mean looking at them is always a worthwhile experience, especially when it comes to aquariums. You never know if it’s just going to be one big fish tank that you could’ve experienced at Petsmart, or if you’re going to walk into a nautical adventure that makes you feel like Ace Ventura: Pet Detective.
Knowing each aquarium offers a different experience, I came up with a scorecard that you can apply to any aquarium worldwide. For a field trip to the aquarium to be worth the high, you need to feel good about four areas:
- Time Spent to See Everything
- The Environment: Calm/Relaxing or Chaotic/Stressful
- The Types of Animals/Exhibits Available: Any Wow Factor?
- Expense vs. Experience
Time Spent to See Everything
The amount of time spent at your city’s aquarium is very crucial. You don’t want the experience to be too short that you feel like you need to find something else to do immediately after, but you also you don’t want it to last so long that you completely sober up and get that “Man, I’m ready to go smoke again” irritability.
My aquarium experience took me about an hour and some change, a perfect timespan because I was able to hit my peak high as I came across the green anaconda, which obviously enabled me to speak fluent Parseltongue. (His name was Gary; single father, 100 kids.)
Environment (Calm/Relaxing? Or Chaotic/Stressful?)
The perfect high environment is somewhere you can cool out and really sink into your high. You don’t need to be talked to or feel rushed; you need to be able to exist in your own bubble.
You’d think the aquatic environment would match every one of those descriptors, but then you get there and realize that it’s full of loud-ass kids who have no concept of personal space. As I was getting to know Gary, this herd of 7-year olds rushed the glass and started pounding away. Considering how high I was, this stressed me the hell out and was all a bit too much. I figure most aquariums nationwide, big or small, are also packed full of reckless rugrats, so that’s a negative against aquariums. (And a positive for birth control.)
Animals/Exhibits Available
Any type of go-look-at-animals establishment clearly needs to have a plethora of animals to look at. If they don’t have at least three animals that make you scream “YOOOOOO, LOOK AT THIS SHIT!”, they are not worth the high.
I didn’t walk into my local aquarium with any major expectations, but I did expect to see at least some kind of animal that would blow my mind. Did that happen? No, and yes.
Even though this aquarium had animals from all over the world, the majority of them were just different species of frogs and birds. I came here to watch a shark eat another shark, not to look at Toucan Sam. I did see otters and a huge albino crocodile, but neither of them made me feel in awe. It almost got to the point where I wanted to ask an employee if they kept the cooler animals in the back, like when you can’t find your size at a shoe store.
I will give the aquarium props on one thing, though: it had a jaguar, bro. I have no clue what that jaguar was doing in an aquarium, but she was so beautiful. And we even had a moment where the jaguar looked me in the eyes, stared into my soul, and saw that I was definitely getting mozzarella sticks for dinner.
Still though, if the aquarium doesn’t have at least three awe-inspiring animals or exhibits, it’s a no from me.
Expense vs. Experience
You never want to spend money on an activity, then walk away feeling like “Damn, I should’ve just put that towards an eighth of Artizen’s Blue Dream.” The whole aquarium field trip hit me for a cool $30 ($20 for the ticket, $10 for parking), and all in all, I’d say I didn’t feel $30 worth of positive energy upon my exit.
Are Aquariums Worth the High?
Though I’ll personally always love getting high and going to aquariums, I conclude that, generally speaking, aquariums are not worth the high. They’re packed with screaming kids who ruin your vibe, which will cause you to resent the price of admission. Even if they meet the cool animals/exhibits requirement, you’d much rather be at home getting high and watching Planet Earth.
