Why Vaping Disease Has Me So Mad

Me trying to combine AC Slater and Dylan McKay (rest his soul), with a dog. Apple photo dropped this on me for the 15 year anniversary of its tragic occurrence.

In high school and college, I was often unbearably bored. I was bored in ways I didn’t understand or appreciate. And certainly I didn’t understand the meaning of boredom or the importance of being “present.” But because of my boredom I did things that in hindsight I wish I hadn’t done, the tamest of which was thinking it was cool to wear an AC Slater chain with a Dylan McKay earring and haircut. Vaping would have been pretty tame for me too, at age 20.

When I see these teenagers and 20-somethings suffering immediate, severe, and sometimes deadly effects of vaping, I think, it could easily have been me. People—especially young people—have so many reasons for trying or getting into e-cigarettes, and many think it’s harmless or way safer than smoking. If smoking takes thirty years to get back at you with smoking, this is at least forty right?

I think about how invincible I thought I was then, not like Superman or something but like bad stuff won’t happen—it’s statistically improbable. Companies that sell products all over do their due diligence, right? Mainly, I think about how glad I am that decisions in high school and college, when I was still very much trying to figure this whole thing out, did not end my life or permanently hurt me.

The vaping illness and disease epidemic is jacked up, especially because many companies advertise products as a healthy alternative.

As an update to my photographic timeline, my 3.5 y.o. drew this picture of me, which she calls “Cross Baba” (daddy). I asked her why I was cross and she said “because other kids were misbehaving.” Of course it’s always the other kids—except when it could be you too, right?

I guess maybe I have aged poorly…