It must be almost 30 years now since I swiped my first pack of Lucky Strikes off that 7-11 counter. Who suspects an 8 year old boy and his adorable 6 year old sister of stealing anything, much less the most god awful bundle of camel piss drenched hay to ever be sold as cigarettes? Perhaps that's why the Lucky Strikes were where they were, on the back counter away from the other cigarettes as if they're unflinching lack of respect for the trappings of normal society scared Benson & Hedges so much he grabbed Virginia Slim and fled to the other side of the street. My heart pounding with such intensity that I could hear the blood pumping in my head I peeked around the soda machine waiting for the recently paroled clerk to help another patron. Perfect, the next customer is paying in change and carpet lint so he'll be occupied for a minute. "Now" I signaled to my sister so she could walk in front of me blocking the security camera while I reached up with one tiny hand and plucked a pack of "barebacks" off the counter. Unfiltered so my little lungs weren't deprived of any gaseous mana.
As with any white trash child worth his moniker I already had a book of matches in my front pocket so we darted across the street to the overgrown lot were we could enjoy our candy in peace while I became a man. Just a short time later I'd no longer have to swipe my cigarettes as my mom started supplying them for me and even let me join her in smoking at the dinner table or in the car on the way to school. And so began a nearly 20 year relationship with nicotine.
Fast forward to if I recall corectly the end of summer 2014-may have been later in the year as sometimes the oppressive Texas sun keeps it's foot on your neck long past what most would consider a respectable period. Nevertheless, it was a fine day to spend in pursuit of ethically grown chicken eggs for a little quiche I had planned for this months urban composting meeting. Taking a break from kitchen I sat down by the pool in my apartment complex straddling the edge of gentrification in South East Austin. It had been years since I smoked and it no longer beckoned me against the rocks with it's sweet siren's song, so when a neighbor let me try one of his new fangled electronic cigarettes I never would have expected that in just a few months I'd have a shoebox sized partition in one of my file cabinets dedicated solely to batteries, juices, atomizers and vaporizer components.
Walking into a vape shop can feel a lot like walking into gym for your first time and not knowing the name of a single piece of equipment, but know you just want to get "swole". It's almost always a small group of skater looking white kids behind the counter engaging in some sort of contest to see who has the better Puff the Magic Dragon impression as they exhale inhuman amounts of vaporized vegetable oil and glycerin at each other. That's never been the case at Vapor. I've always felt like the staff here is out of puberty and not interested in a pissing, or in this case, vapor blowing contest with me. Not only do they have the best prices I've found but they've always steered me in the right direction, even when it could have been a larger purchase had they not.
tl;dr Vapor has great prices, a mature staff, and a good selection of quality juices. read more