Here's a good rule of thumb: Do about half as much as your friends tell you to.

They will tell you to "eat the whole thing" of whatever they give you, regardless of the size of said "thing" or the strength of its contents. That's because stoners operate on a binary system of measurement: Something is either cashed or there's "a whole thing of it." If you're worried about your impending levels of inebriation, just take a little at first and squirrel some away for later. Also, if you can at all help it: Do not do hallucinogens in the city.

Right angles are the wrong angles. I know you don't think that geometry can bum you out, but just the simple act of being around man-made structures can ruin a good trip. Out in the woods, you might operate under the delusion that you've become a Gummi Bear, and you will definitely meet some kind of spirit wolf; in the city, some dude might lick your elbow on the subway, and you will definitely see somebody get hit by a car. It's a whole different, and generally much worse, experience.

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"Whoa, trippy! This guy says he needs money to pay for insulin ... this is the worst high ever."

Another good rule of thumb: Make absolutely sure you're not driving anywhere on hallucinogens. Don't just assume you'll know better. You cannot trust your high self; that bastard has no idea what he's doing. You need to stay one step ahead of him. So take your keys out now and set them in the paws of an old dirty teddy bear with one eye missing. I know that doesn't make any sense to Sober You, but trust me: Stoned You will not cross the bear.

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"THE BEAR CAN SEE YOUR INTENTIONS LIKE STARS IN THE SKY. THE BEAR DOES NOT APPROVE."

Or truck, or motorcycle, or whatever your heart desires. As long as you can picture Burt Reynolds or Steve McQueen jumping that bitch over a river, you buy that sucker. No, it is not a practical conveyance. There is no justifying having any kind of awesome vehicle in your young adult life. Conventional reason says that you should buy something reliable that gets good gas mileage, because you don't have money for repairs or the tiny war crimes that gas prices have become. And besides, if you can afford any kind of bitchin' transport as a young adult, it's probably beat to shit and only technically street legal if you file it with the DMV as "Farm Equipment: Tractors and Misc."

But that's OK, because you know what's cooler than a cool car? Telling everybody you're working on a cool car.

You know what they say: A Camaro in the garage is worth 10 Fiestas on the road.

Or at least they would say that, if they had a bitchin' Camaro.

Pappa John's via Autoblog
"I used to worry about stuff like insurance and gas mileage -- now I only worry about drowning in pussy! No seriously, I'm so scared. Somebody help me."

This is the only time in your life when routine car troubles are still a reasonable excuse. Once you're a for-realsies adult, God forbid that ever happens, they expect you to plan far enough ahead to compensate for any recurring vehicular mishaps. You're also probably young enough that you still have carless friends whom you can merrily squeeze for double the amount of gas money that ferrying them around costs you. Get high with Paco and Bill and take 'em to Taco Bell, then ask them both to pay for gas: Each is too ripped to realize the other has already paid. Boom! You just made $10 for a $2 trip.

You know what that's called? That's called profit. This rusty Camaro is technically a business! You could probably write this shit off on your taxes, if you made enough to pay them, or cared enough to do them (which you absolutely don't).

Everybody will tell you not to, and technically, they're right: Don't trust your heart to people with emotional problems, because they don't have the ability to properly care for it. Don't enter into any commitment, implied or otherwise, with a mentally unbalanced person, because you don't know what they'll do if they ever feel slighted by you.

These are all very true and entirely reasonable pieces of advice. They're just omitting one incredibly important detail: Psychopaths are amazing in bed.

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"Sure, I'll probably punch your mother one day, but I'll do that thing you like in bed that everybody else thinks is gross!"

Oh yes, they will absolutely make your domestic life hell. You'll long for the days when you didn't wake up with the word "BETRAYER" smeared in poop on the hood of your Camaro -- but everybody needs to have sex with a psychopath at least once, if only to set a point of reference for exactly how much shit you're willing to deal with for the promise of exotic intercourse. Oh, and ladies, this applies to you as well: "Put your dick in crazy" is just a saying, probably because "Let crazy put its dick in you" sounds a lot worse.

Here's a good rule of thumb: If somebody's not yelling at you by the time you're done bonin' - your partner, your parents, the neighbors, the National Guard - then you have not yet begun to bone.

Don't buy anything good.

Don't even think about it. Not even mid-grade beer. Not even faux-mid-grade shit like Weinhard's or Rolling Rock. If possible, you want beer so shitty that it's actually a knockoff of other shitty beer. Buy beer at the Dollar Tree. Buy it from strange-smelling Russian surplus stores. Because no matter how great a beer tastes, quality starts to cut off sharply once you're about three deep, and it goes right out the window entirely the second you pour it into a funnel.

Also, you want low-alcohol beer. I know you think you don't. You're hardcore: You want the most alcohol you can get for your money. But that's a mistake. It is way more fun to get hammered on 12 PBRs than it is to get equally hammered on three pints of imperial stout. Plus, when you inevitably have to apologize for all the things you did last night, "God, I'm sorry, man, I had like 15 High Lifes" is a much better-sounding excuse than "God, I'm sorry, man, I had like two Old Rasputins."