The deal, you see, was that I told my wife that I'd quit smoking when I had a child. I was asked repeatedly when I'd begin making moves toward quitting once she got pregnant, but my consumption never wavered. After the daughter was born, I merely tried to hide my smoking, only adding to additional scorn from the wife that probably factored into her decision to get a divorce.
The original idea that I'm still shocked to see how well it worked was to begin vaping. Use the vaporizer to stop using real cigarettes. At first, I thought it would never work, but sure enough, my commitment ultimately led to me going one full year without a cigarette.
But now it seems that vaping is subject to the intense sort of public backlash one would normally associated with ... smoking cigarettes. Seriously, I'm astounded by the number of individuals who just absolutely seem to lose their shit at the sight of a vaporizer.
I can only conclude that this group of non-smokers suffers from the most aggressive form of small penis syndrome ever. All of these people are so miserable in their daily existence that they spend all of their time just searching for ways to prohibit others from experiencing joy so the others will hopefully be as without hope as these sad sacks.
Whenever those smoking bans got enacted, the routine non-smoker celebration was something about how nice it was to go out for an evening and no longer smell like smoke. Wonderful. Congratulations. So with that in mind, what exactly is the issue with vaping?
Fucking seriously. I know the science is still out on a lot of this stuff, but I'm guessing the second-hand risks are relatively minor. Not to mention that my little cloud of vapor disappears relatively quickly without leaving any lingering odor. Again, I can only conclude that the issue is that you're seeing me doing something that makes me happy, and you can't have that if you're a non-smoker because you need everybody else to be as miserable as yourself. What a sad, sad state of being.
I vaped in the office for years without issue, despite a supposed ban being included in a handbook update. But now that we've got a new office manager that does everything by the book and even the boss sent me an IM about not vaping, I've been forced to leave my seat to vape. Of course, can't do it in the hallway either because the cute girl next door informed me the entire building is non-vaping.
Yesterday, I was vaping at Frolic's Castle. I could tell a child was looking at me while I did this, and sure enough, a security guard approached me a short while later to inform me I could not vape in the play area. Or the entire mall. I got a particular kick out of the part where he added, "There's kids here."
Yeah, heaven forbid a child see me vaping. I mean, nowhere near my height to be at risk of any of this supposed second-hand vaping mist/smoke/whatever exposure, but you know, just the sight of me is too much to bear. Well, for non-smokers, I mean. To most normal people, it's probably nothing particularly noteworthy.
I've tried multiple times now to give up the real cigarettes, but every encounter with non-smokers only makes me want to double down on my commitment to the smoking community. My biggest fear about quitting smoking, after all, is becoming a non-smoker. I'd just as soon prefer to not to feel a need to openly declare an unabashed hypersensitivity to mundane things having no tangible effect on my life because that ultimately seems to be more beneficial.
Realistically, I don't expect these non-smokers who are so consumed with enforcing indoor vaping bans to concede any ground anytime soon. So I guess I'll just be forced to try and be more discrete with my vaping. Again, chances are good you won't even notice when I do it.
The problem exists only when one of these miserable non-smokers catches sight of me vaping. If I do this out of sight (restrooms, I've found, are ideal for this purpose), I'll privately get my relief. And all that will be left is for the miserable non-smoker to go find something else to take issue with and continue being miserable about.
