Where the Fuck Is My Fucking Vape?
By JOHAN YIVES JOHANOPOLIS, EDITOR-AT-LARGE
Look, I know this isn’t “journalism” in the traditional sense, and no, Kip, I don’t need a lecture about libel and decorum and “tone alignment.” But I’ve looked in every pocket of my damned linen shirt, flipped the cushions of my couch, and shaken out the every paper stack in the office. It’s gone. Vanished. Like a Russian draft dodger with the wallet of a British backpacker.
Let’s not pretend the world makes sense. My editor’s desk is a trestle table in a fan-cooled second floor office above a coffee shop in Yaowarat. Their Wi-Fi is too slow to upload PDFs but somehow fast enough to autoplay crypto scams. My apartment has a balcony the size of a paperback novel and a gecko that watches me sleep. But I could bear it all—with vape in hand.
My vape is more than just a nicotine delivery device. It’s a coping mechanism. A symbol. A post-postmodern pacifier for the overeducated and underemployed. How am I supposed to write a 400 word news report about the Cambodian-Thai border skirmishes in this state of mind?
To the person who took my vape: You are making me confront reality stone-cold-sober at 6 p.m. on a Sunday, which is frankly unethical. My vape was my last vestige of control in a city that smells like soggy dreams and fried despair.
Yes, I know it’s illegal. Don’t start. But there’s a difference between legal prohibition and outright theft. Laws are one thing. Stealing another man’s nicotine delivery system without so much as a whisper of consent is a violation of the sacred farang code.
Yes, I suspect foul play. Was it you Trevor? You’ve been spiraling lately. You really think your Google Sheet of “content deliverables” will change the trajectory of this cursed publication? Good grief. Or maybe it was Kip. Yes, she denies it, but she once said it makes the office smell like a cyberpunk brothel, which frankly, I thought was a compliment. She thinks this whole outfit should be “professional.” As if journalism ever was.
Hell, maybe it was a soi dog, somehow scaling two flights of stairs from Yarowat Road like a nicotine-seeking missile. I wouldn’t even be mad. At least that would be poetic.
There’s also the school tour, a PR stunt we all agreed to while drunk. Who brings a group of 15-year-olds to The Farang Standard office anyway? They came in wide-eyed, left suspiciously quiet—and I’m just saying, vapes are small. One of those little monsters may be puffing away behind the canteen of Assumption College as we speak, channeling my peace of mind through a mango haze flavored cloud.
But really, this isn’t just about a vape. It’s about what we’ve become. Once, Thailand was a place where you could trust—to a moderate degree—even the most reprehensible foreigner. But now? We’ve imported Western moral decay, the insidious rot of casual theft, the erosion of basic gentlemanly decency. When a man can no longer leave his contraband vape on his desk without it vanishing into the Bangkok ether, what hope is left?
I have nothing now but lungs full of humid disappointment and a rage headache that tastes like withdrawal and betrayal.
If anyone has information on the whereabouts of a tastefully distressed silver and turquoise 200w Aegis Legend 3, please contact the editorial office. I will trade a feature slot, a half-drunk bottle of sangria, and one (1) visa run tip in exchange.
No questions asked. I just want my vape back.