The Kings Of Cool

18

First he separated the male plants from the female plants.

“Awww,” O said, “that’s kind of sad.”

“We don’t want accidental fertilization.”

“Couldn’t we just put tiny little condoms on the male plants?” O asked.

Ben told her that they couldn’t.

O asked, “How can you tell the male from the female plants?”

“The stamens look like balls,” Ben said.

“Well, there you go.”

“We choose a male plant,” Ben explained, “take its pollen, and pollinate the female plant.”

“I might need a few minutes to myself here,” O said.

O found it highly amusing that Ben created an Isle of Lesbos-a virtual Women’s Prison Movie-marijuana farm. She also took a certain neo-feminist pride that the most powerful, juicy, THC-laden buds came from the females.

Anyway, Ben used the seed produced by the pollinated female to create what is known in genetics as the F1 hybrid. Then he grew that plant, took its seed, and bred it back with the parent plant.

“With the parent?” O asked.

“Yup.”

“ Iiiiiccck,” O answered. “That’s, like, incest.”

“Not like. Is.”

“Cue the banjo.”

She came to refer to Ben’s marijuana crop as “L.A.”

Not “Los Angeles.”

“Lesbian Appalachia.”