Welcome to the 5 year high school reunion! We’re packing it all in: jello-shots in the locker room, unsupervised grinding to the greatest hits of Flo Rida, and the obvious sexual tension between Janet and Mark; the Class Couple who broke up three hours after graduation. But before you get too excited, there’s one thing I should mention.
Your classmates have spent their post-grad lives becoming People Who Vape.
It really should come as no surprise that your peers have dedicated the last half decade to inhaling and exhaling aerosol. I mean, your Senior Prom was held in a party bus parked in the teacher’s lot, so you really can’t be too shocked that you were surrounded by pre-vapers in your adolescence. It can all be a little hard to come to terms with–the clouds of mango-scented vapor swirling in the gym rafters, the discarded JUUL pods you’ll step on all night, the fact that people are calling it “JUULing” now, apparently. To ease you through this reckoning, I’ve provided you with a comprehensive guide to the people from your high school who will vape right in your face and then say “hey, so I guess I vape now.”
1. Evan
Okay yeah well, of course Evan vapes. He was the second string quarterback, a position that screams “I keep my e-cig in my buttcheek pocket, and yeah, I’ve whipped it out during my Econ lecture.” Evan always forgot your name even though you were locker neighbors for seven years, so it should be fairly obvious that his lungs are full of vape juice.
2. Gwen
Yeah, really! Gwen, that quiet girl who seemed to always be reading an Animorphs book in the school courtyard, has a vape pen and it’s…bedazzled. When Gwen got to liberal arts school, she shedded her image of “Bookish Girl” to become “Bookish Girl Who Vapes Outside the Library Even When It is 20 Degrees Outside And Also a Thursday At 10 AM.” (Gwen likes to tell people that she’s “changed.”)
3. Kiara
Crazy, huh? Kiara–the former President of Students Making Smart Decisions–is a bona fide vape queen. She read an article once saying that vape is better for you than smoking and she totally believed it! Now Kiara has a Pop-Up Vape Shop in a former Blockbusters, as well as a boyfriend with a face tattoo. (That boyfriend is Evan).
4. Principal Walters
Doesn’t that throw you for a loop? Your argyle-wearing, Cumberland Farms 32 oz. coffee-drinking principal regularly puts his lips to the mouthpiece of a vaporizer and breathes in. After he confiscated a vape pen from a sophomore, he decided to give it a try, and now look at him! He’s got the confidence of nightclub bouncer, and a wife who won’t look him in the eye.
5. Sean
I know what you’re thinking: “No, not Sean!” But sorry, your longtime crush Sean is not exempt from the clutches of Big Vape. Even though he’s glo’d up since graduation–on account of the laser hair treatment he got to remove that strange patch of fur on his face–Sean has an unfortunate habit of going to house parties and turning the host’s pantry into his own personal “vape closet.” He will listen to Mac Demarco, eat all the Double Stuffed Oreos, and complain to anyone nearby about “fake people these days.” I know you were looking forward to touching Sean’s newly de-fuzzed forehead, so please accept my condolences.
6. Gina
I know you’re still reeling from the Sean bombshell, so I’m sure it also comes as a surprise that your best friend of seventeen years Gina, is also a vape-ess. You’re thinking: “but I saw her yesterday and she didn’t bust out her vape pen over brunch!” Oh honey. She did. You’re thinking: “but I read all of her finsta posts and I know everything that happens to her!” Oh but ho-neyyyy. She’s been posting mirror selfies with strawberry vape swirling out of her mouth for months now. You’re thinking: “can I be friends with someone who would do such a thing?”
Oh honey.
Look in the mirror. See that strawberry smoke? You’ve been vaping all along.
Photoshopped by Sarah Clapp.