I hate failure

 

The thing is it’s true. Science is grounded in errors and mistakes, a process of coming up with a theory and then finding a hundred ways it doesn’t work. Without the scientific process we wouldn’t have cars, microwave popcorn or regulated mods. Without science I wouldn’t have been able to buy an Austin Princess. I wouldn’t have been able to buy it, drive it 40 miles up the M1 and then wait for a recovery vehicle to take it to its final resting home. Stupid science.

Many take up vaping like it’s the same as buying a new computer – that you can turn it on, it works and if it doesn’t you can stand in Comet shouting loudly on a Saturday afternoon. Maybe this is the experience for most; maybe my journey has been different?

My journey is one where I’ve forgotten to replace the head in an Evod and watched the juice pour all over the table. It’s OK, I told myself, as this was a valuable lesson in how not to be an idiot. If you discover that something is stupid then don’t do that thing again.

To date I’ve only bought one bread maker, one yoghurt maker, one ice cream maker and got married once so I am clearly good at learning. The prosecution would probably like to enter that I have two children, owned two Moto Guzzis and frequently consume curries that don’t agree with me in the morning into evidence. Stupid prosecutors.

It probably depends on the severity of the consequence as to how much importance you attach to the error and the efforts you go to in order not to repeat it. I’m willing to bet that I’m not the only one who has tried to drive and vape a subohm dripper ONCE before being consumed by blind panic. Being told to touch an electric fence “because it’ll be a laugh and we’ve all done it” is one of those. I remain proud of the fact that I declined to use my testicles.

I’ve had this dalliance with high wattage regulated mods, it seemed like fun. It wasn’t. It transpires I’m a very simple type with simple needs – the kind that are provided by a mech and a dripper. Staring at the instruction for preheating coils and customising the on-going wattage reminded me of the time I laughed at my Dad for being unable to program a video recorder. If you’d placed me in a plaid cardigan and put confused beads of sweat on my brow it’d have been identical. Stupid regulated devices.

The scope for error seems to be logarithmic with those boxes and none more so than when thinking I was increasing the vape by 0.3 watts. Pre-sets: what the Hell?! Instead of the 11.3W I was planning in my head (as I clicked without looking) I got 125W of cotton torching fury. So I think I’ve learnt the lesson that high-powered boxes and me do not go together.

Although the opportunity is slim, I’d never attempt sarcasm in Spanish to the police of Caracas again. Learning lessons at the blunt end of a nightstick in a basement isn’t particularly pleasant but I’m betting such an approach would have made my classes able to cite Newton’s law of Universal Gravitation. Not sure how that applies to vaping at all, but it’s a theory that could work. If someone sees me holding a regulated mod again please hit me.