Ignorance of banana-peel smoking law still cost a worker her job

Evidence

After only weeks of the tedium, I began to carry an extra large purse to work and stuff it full of files, and then dump them in the trash on my lunch hour and then again after work. They never caught me at that, but I did finally get fired for baking banana peels in the chemists’ oven, and I also was accused of selling drugs to my coworkers on my lunch hour. My supervisor assumed the joints I rolled with “mellow yellow” were illegal, and he said if I didn’t leave the premises immediately, he would report me to the police. I knew I could not be arrested for selling or smoking banana peels, but nonetheless I took this as a sign from the Universe to get my ass back to Los Angeles, where I could resume the life of a junior college student majoring in Theater Arts by day and a part time topless dancer by night. — Dolores DeLuce, Blow Jobs, 136

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

  • XREF: Connects to the myth-history of ‘mellow yellow’ banana-peel joints, a 1960s counterculture drug hoax
  • QUESTION: Was there any actual pharmacologically active substance in smoked banana peels, or was the whole ‘mellow yellow’ phenomenon pure urban legend? Worth chasing.
  • CANDY: A file clerk fired for baking banana peels in the lab oven is a self-contained absurd 60s anecdote.