- I don't really know what the fuck the article
was trying to say, but what I heard it saying
was that we were pissing out
thousands of dollars of liquid gold.
And I was gonna be rich.
- Welcome to, um...
to "This Is Not Happening."
I'm your host, Roy Wood Jr.
Whoo.
Whoa.
[music slows and distorts]
♪ ♪
Uh...
[indistinct whispering]
[indistinct speech]
Whoo.
Ooh. Ooh.
[indistinct speech]
Tonight's episode is all about...
[scraping, sniffing, bubbling]
[cheers and applause]
She hails all the way from Philadelphia, PA.
Jessa Reed, everybody!
[cheers and applause]
- Tonight, I'm gonna tell the story
of the last time I drank piss.
Stop me if you've heard this one.
First, I'm gonna explain
how I went from being totally normal
to the kind of person that has a story about drinking piss.
Multiple stories.
Okay, so like, the first time I tried meth...
[audience laughs]
I was 22, I was at a gig in Montana--
when in Rome-- and I tried it on accident.
I would never purposely try meth, I'm not a scumbag.
[audience laughs]
I thought it was coke.
And I thought it was coke 'cause the guy
that gave it to me told me it was coke.
And what kind of world are we living in
if you can't trust a stranger giving you drugs?
So I do the line, and the back of my head catches on fire.
[audience laughs]
And I'm like, did you just slip me meth?
Who slips people-- so I yelled at him.
I was like, I don't even think you roofie right, idiot.
Supposed to roofie girls so you can fuck 'em,
not so they can help you take apart your microwave.
Okay, so this is where shit gets weird.
Here's the thing, don't ever try meth.
'Cause it's fuckin' awesome.
And you won't want to stop.
I did the accidental roofie meth
and was just addicted to meth
for six years after that.
Like, ruined my life.
I was just trying to do a bump at the club
so I could learn how to line dance
or whatever the fuck they do in Montana.
Now I'm alone in my hotel room,
shaving off my eyebrows and shit.
I get back home to Portland, Oregon.
I quit doing comedy so I could pursue
meth full-time.
Really seemed like that was gonna work out
better than it did.
I mean, it probably paid about the same.
I see we have comedians in here tonight.
It was crazy, though, 'cause I was so high.
I was high as shit.
So I didn't even realize
the gravity of what was happening.
I felt like I had just discovered
the secret to happiness.
I got home.
I was bragging to my friends and family
about my newfound meth habit.
Fuckin' none of them were happy for me.
And then I just got defensive, like,
"Well, this is who I am now, so if you can't handle"--
whatever fuckin' Marilyn Monroe quote.
"You can't take me at my meth-iest,
you don't deserve me when my trailer blows up."
So my parents asked me to vacate their basement
before I start selling off the TVs and shit.
And I move into this sketchy meth hostel
with multiple dudes named Shorty.
And I just go completely off the rails.
Here's the thing, though, when you're high on meth,
you can justify any kind of behavior.
You can rationalize, like, everything just makes sense.
I think it's 'cause your mind is so open.
Like, if you watch a video on the Internet of somebody
vacuuming their front yard on meth,
you're like, "That is crazy."
That's 'cause you're only using 6% of your brain.
If you were firing off at 98% meth capacity,
you would be like, "Fuck, that makes perfect sense!
My yard is filthy!"
So, still, nothing seemed amiss to me.
I'm living with the Shorties, I've got no job,
I lost my driver's license, I lost contact with my family,
but I was in daily communication with the aliens.
Blues and grays, it was wild.
My teeth fell out so fast, it was like how I imagine
if a witch put a spell on you.
They just crumble like they're made of sand and hairspray.
I was just-- [spitting]
Sorry.
And my whole life revolved around meth.
All I cared about was meth, but I-I was like, yeah,
but like, I'm only snorting it.
That's practically recreational.
I'm not like an addict like those guys that smoke it.
Look at them, they're a mess.
So when I started smoking it...
[audience laughs]
That was a social decis-- I knew, I was like,
I'm gonna be here for a while,
and I want to integrate into my meth community.
You know what I mean, I want to, like,
kind of plug in,
and it was a social thing for them.
They would sit around and smoke meth
and talk about where they were gonna steal mail that day.
It was like joining the tweakers' Elks Lodge,
you know, so I was like...
and by that point, I had been doing it long enough
to know that as long as I don't shoot up, I'll be fine.
Right?
So when I started shooting up...
[audience laughs]
That was a financial decision.
Because you have to smoke that shit all day.
It is not cost effective at all.
You can shoot up once in the morning,
you're good for the rest of the day.
It's probably the most fiscally responsible decision
I've made as an adult, if I'm being honest.
But I have super small veins,
so I had to shoot up in my neck.
Yeah, sorry, I'm trying to ease you guys in here.
It gets way the fuck worse.
Shooting up in your neck is, um...
Inconvenient.
[audience laughs]
'Cause someone else has to do that for you.
And the kind of people that possess the skill set
to hit you in your jugular...
Not the kind of people that are fun to do meth with.
I was into, like, making necklaces
and collage art and shit.
They were into, like,
home invasions
and snuff porn.
So shit gets kind of dark around this point.
And this is when I start thinking, like,
God, there's got to be a better way.
Not, like, get sober or anything fuckin' stupid.
Just, like, a better way to do meth.
So I was Googling it.
Not enough information on the subject,
but I came across this article, and it was talking--
it was, like, "Time" magazine or something.
It was talking about the meth epidemic,
and the reason that so many people
were switching from cocaine to meth.
Apparently, some people had done this on purpose.
And according to the article, the reason is
because the meth high lasts so long.
And according to the article, that's because your body
can metabolize coke, but your body has no idea--
you do a line, and then it breaks it down,
and you're only high until it starts breaking it down,
but your body has no idea what to do with meth.
That's why you're high so long.
'Cause it goes in meth, and comes out meth.
And you get to stay high that whole time.
So I don't really know what the fuck the article
was trying to say, but what I heard it saying
was that we were pissing out
thousands of dollars of liquid gold.
[laughter and applause]
And I was gonna be rich.
So I originally set out to find the formula
for extracting meth from tweaker piss,
as I'm collecting buckets of my friend's urine,
once again, there are no red flags going off,
no thoughts that perhaps this is symptomatic
of my life spiraling out of my control.
I was proud of myself, I was like,
"Wow, I am really thinking outside the box."
"This must be what Steve Jobs feels like."
So, after about ten days of trying to do science,
I was like, "Meh, chemistry's hard.
I'm just gonna drink it from the tap."
You're so grossed out. It was my own piss.
Give me some credit-- I wasn't, like,
ladling it out of the bucket.
So the first time I drank meth piss...
I got so high that I went to the place in "The Matrix"
where, like, they plug their heads in
and nobody wears makeup?
But I went to the real one.
And I met my higher self.
And I met the higher selves of, like, my friends and shit,
and they taught me the true nature of consciousness
and the wiring under the board.
It was the most transcendental experience I've ever had,
and I've done a shit ton of psychedelics,
in case that's not obvious.
I spent the whole day at the Matrix place.
And when I came down, I was so transformed
by this experience that I was just addicted
to drinking meth piss.
Here's the thing, don't ever drink meth piss,
'cause it's fantastic, and you won't want
to do any other drugs.
I did quit shooting up that day, though,
'cause there was, like, no point, right?
Started eating meth with a spoon out of the bag.
'Cause doing actual meth just became a technicality
to manufacturing meth piss.
I had it down to a science.
It was the second piss after you eat the meth
that was the magical nectar.
I told everyone about it.
I converted no one.
I did get voted most likely
to become a bag lady by my fellow tweakers,
'cause by that point, I spent my days
raging against the reptilian agenda
while sippin' on my pizz-urp.
So the last time I drank meth piss...
I'll get to the point-- where I'm walking around
southeast Portland, and it was, I had a--
it was time to harvest, if you will.
And I didn't like to do it in public restrooms
'cause it was hard to get a clean catch.
And the only person that I knew that lived in that neighborhood
was my little sister, and my little sister,
at this point, is the only family member
that I will speak to because she's the only one
I can be sure isn't working for George Bush.
But we are like complete opposites.
She is 20 years old.
She totally has her shit together.
She has an apartment, job, car, boyfriend, whatever.
I'm 27, I-- don't really have to clarify
that I didn't have my shit together.
I was... rolling up to her house to drink piss.
She's also embarrassed of me, which, rightfully so.
When I knock on her door, I'm wearing my meth uniform,
which is a bubblegum-pink ball gown,
like, prom dress, like, puffed out--
like, you know, with tulle and satin and shit out to here,
Skechers, a stolen FBI windbreaker,
a Barbie backpack, and a tiara.
The tiara was 'cause I didn't have any teeth left.
You don't have a grill, you got to wear a tiara
'cause it draws the eyes upward.
She answers the door and sees that it's me,
and she's like, ah, um...
My friends are here, and they don't get it.
Could you maybe come back never?
And I was like, I don't give a fuck about your friends.
I just need to use your bathroom.
And she was like, oh, my God, are you gonna shoot up?
And I was like, no, I don't shoot up anymore.
I'm living right.
She says fine, you have two minutes,
but I swear to God, you have to leave after that.
So I go in there, I waste my entire two-minute allotment
just rifling through her cupboards,
just trying to find like, some type of receptacle to piss in.
She doesn't even have a cup or anything.
I'm like, what kind of barbaric-ass
bathroom operation you running here?
Finally, the only thing I can find is her toothbrush holder.
I know, right? Get a fucking cup.
So I knocked the toothbrushes out of it,
and it's like the cheap plastic kind,
you know what I'm talking about?
Comes from Walmart, comes inside a waste basket
with, like, a shitty bath mat,
you know what I'm talking about?
And it's got four holes,
and it looks like that thing is a lid.
I always thought that thing was a lid.
But trust me, it's not a lid.
'Cause I am, like, working the fuck
out of this goddamn thing, I can't get it off.
The tiara's sliding down, it's at 90 degrees.
She's banging on the door.
Finally, I take her toothbrush, and I'm like,
I'm just going to pop it off with the toothbrush.
I snap her toothbrush in half, and I'm like,
what the fuck is with everything in this bathroom?
I guess I'm just gonna have to
friggin' go in, you know?
So I don't know if you've ever tried to piss... probably not.
But it's like that, right, that thing at the carnival
where you gotta shoot the water into the clown's round mouth?
You know what I mean?
Only instead of winning a stuffed animal,
you get piss on your hands.
So I get about half of it in there, I go to throw it back.
And I see inside of the holes that there's, like,
like old toothpaste, jerky, and dust and shit.
And I was like, ugh!
This is gross.
I can't drink this.
Without a chaser.
So I hide it in her wastebasket.
And I go out of the bathroom, she falls in.
and I'm like, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, don't go in there.
"Nothing weird is happening.
"I just need a Coke, and then I'm gonna go in there
"and finish my normal... thing that I was doing,
and then I'll be out of your hair,"
so I go, I get the Coke.
Of course, she scurries in there.
She finds the broken toothbrush
and the 8-ball of my piss.
So when I come back in, she's just like...
Over-reacting.
[audience laughs]
Kicking me out of her house and shit.
I'm not really listening, but then I tune in
all of a sudden, and she's like,
"You're almost 30 years old.
You need to wake up and get your shit together."
To which I replied...
"All right."
So in five years, I've done horrible things to get drugs.
I've been intermittently homeless.
I've had Ukrainians try to kill me,
and I'm addicted to drinking my piss,
and apparently, all I needed this whole time
was someone to suggest that maybe I don't do this anymore.
[laughter and applause]
It was the world's laziest intervention.
Even my sister was like, "Wait, really?"
And I was like, "Yeah, well, I mean,
"I can recognize that this has gotten weird.
"You're chastising me while holding a bathroom accessory
"filled with my urine.
I could probably use a break."
And that was it, I got clean that night.
That was 12 years ago.
Well, technically, technically, it was the next day,
'cause I totally drank that pee when she wasn't looking.
But that was the last time that I drank piss.
Thank you very much!
[dark electronic music]
- Jessa Reed, everybody.
Give it up for Jessa.