Sunday, September 13, 2009

I Wish the Warranty Covered Stupidity

You always have to make sure you have your batteries charged as well as having backups on hand at all times. We veteran e smokers know this and sometimes tend to go overboard on the situation. This leads me to my story of spending a vacation day at the Japanese Festival. Oh yes, I knew I’d be spending the whole day there so I know one maybe two batteries would do; but no, I have a total of three so why not? Charge all those bad boys up and let’s vape away! I knew I wasn’t going to need all of them; one actually would’ve been just fine. I’m just the type of person that always likes to have backups on hand… in anything! Too bad I can’t say that about money.

The festival was great. I took my son to see the taiko drumming and me being a drummer/percussionist myself, I appreciated the rhythms which pulsated across the pavilion. My son; being two, stood there in awe as he watched their arms swinging back and forth banging away at the skins. I think that was the highlight of the festival because; all the other stuff, a two year old didn’t have the attention span to last. We ended up calling it a day a little early because the last events were for people who can sit and be still unlike the other traveler that was with me that day. Trust me; I love my son, but man I just can’t keep up with him. The kid’s mind and body moves a mile a minute.

We got home and I wanted to shower right away because that day was just too humid. I left my clothes in the bedroom and took my shower. After the refreshing shower, I then proceeded to go upstairs realizing my e-cig and batteries were still in my pockets. I walked in the bedroom and noticed that the dirty clothes weren’t there anymore. I asked my wife, “Did you take the clothes downstairs?” And she unfortunately said, “Yeah, I decided to get an early start on the wash before I leave town to visit my relatives.”
I got tunnel vision there for a second and realized that all my vaping efforts, all the hard work to stay off the tobacco, and all the enjoyment of smoking in a healthy way; came to screeching halt. I quickly rushed downstairs to stop the wash and; regrettably, it was too late. All three batteries were soaked in detergent soap and water. Oh boy was I stupid for not taking ALL the contents out of my pockets. Those batteries can go so unnoticed when you’re throwing dirty laundry in the wash.

The very next day I called customer service at the company where I got my e-cig from and explained the situation. I had to order more cartridges anyway so I was going to kill two birds with one shot. The lady was so friendly and of course laughed at the story I had to tell her. She immediately processed my order and had it in the mail that day. This was Tuesday and sure enough I got my two new batteries on Friday and the shipping was free. So what did I do until I got my new batteries? Yep; you guessed it, I bought a pack of smokes. They tasted like crap too because, this wasn’t the smoke that I got used to so quickly. It didn’t have the same fulfillment of my e-cig that I once had.

You know the irony of the story is that of course I had to charge the batteries for a few hours before using them and while I was doing that, I tried the other 3 bad batteries just for grins. I figured they’ve dried out, so why not give them a shot. The first one was actually totally dead, but the other two; to my surprise, lit up like a firefly in the sky. "No way!!!”, I thought to myself. LOL … so now I have four great working batteries. Like I said, I love to have backups on hand. So the moral of the story is to #1, keep track of your batteries! And #2, the batteries aren’t dead until they are dead! By all means ladies and gentleman, happy vaping!