Contained within the Sun Journal photo archives are roughly 6,000 photos of yours truly taken over the course of the past 20 years.

Here’s me brooding at a crime scene. Here I am getting my face painted (I was a kitten) at the Balloon Festival. Here’s me leaning against a post, sitting at my desk or begging forgiveness from a young intern.

Photos are fun! And of those 6,000 photos, a total of three don’t feature me with a cigarette dangling out of my mouth like a piece of toxic jewelry.

Man, I used to smoke a lot. Two packs a day at one point, and not much less than that at the end. Smoking helped me to relax, to relate to people at crime scenes and to look a bit like a ’50s-era hood when the situation called for it. (Picture one of the hoods from “Grease,” only without the dancing.) The lowly cigarette with its bad reputation became my avatar. It fit perfectly with the flask I keep in my desk drawer.*

*Note to editors: Just kidding! No need to look in my desk drawer!

I tried to quit a few hundred times. Chantix made me feel psychotic, nicotine gum made my jaw ache and I couldn’t manage to light the patch so that I could smoke it. Willpower failed me and constant nagging only made me smoke harder. I was doomed to a poisonous life of nicotine-stained everything and to a hacking, premature end.

Then I discovered vaping, quit smoking and lived happily ever after, probably. It was all very neat and easy and it utterly lacked drama. So why am I even bothering to bore you with this story?

It’s what I do. It says so on my door.

Actually, I was thinking about my butt-free life while standing in line at DownEast Vapes and waiting for my next fix of chocolate-covered strawberry vape juice. Through the window, I could see some poor putz, hunched over in the rain, trying to get a few puffs from his cigarette before he drowned. He looked so desperate, so demeaned and bedraggled, that it was with great empathy that I thought, “Ha ha! Putz.”

The sight of that soaking-wet butt fiend caused me to recall the things I don’t miss about smoking. As a way to possibly inspire others, or just to fill column space so I can go outside and play, I thought I’d list some of them here.

* People, often kids, but not always, who will shake their heads at you and say, “You know, smoking is bad for you.” They will say this as though they are imparting some little-known secret — as though the dangers of smoking haven’t been drilled into all of our heads five million times by the time we reach the age of 18. Telling a smoker that the habit is bad for him is like telling a drowning man about the perils of water.

* The fake coughing and overly dramatized fanning gestures of people who want you to know that your smoking offends them. They will do this even if you happen to be inside your own car, in your own yard and with all the windows rolled up.

* The hypocrisy of people who go on about the dangers of cigarette smoke while they’re carrying 100 extra pounds, eating fast food three nights a week, slathering on store-bought makeup (you ever read a list of THOSE poisons?) and sitting in front of the TV 26 hours a day.

* Dropping a cigarette into your lap while driving.

* Forking over $80 for a new pair of pants and then watching the flaming end of your smoke fall off and burn a hole right in the crotch. Funny how that never happens when you’re wearing ratty jeans.

* Cigarette lighters designed to be child-proof, which also makes them me-proof. I’m fairly stupid.

* Cigarette lighters that work fine until you are out in the middle of nowhere with no backup, at which point they will stop working.

* That sore spot in the meat of your thumb that develops when you try 400 times straight to get a dying lighter to give up just one second of flame.

* Ash trays that smell like cancerous butt.

* Taking a long drink from a can of beer into which you deposited a cigarette butt just seconds earlier.

* That heart-sinking moment, right after you take your pants off and put your feet up, that you realize you don’t have enough smokes to get you through the night.

* The above scenario when it’s freezing cold out and you have to let your car run for an hour just so you can make the three-minute ride to Cumberland Farms.

* Six bucks a pack for even the floor sweepings.

* Staying in hotels that don’t have patios. What, you think your wife is going to let you sneak a smoke in the bathroom? Naw, naw. Ten flights to street level so you can smoke outside — only to discover that you forgot to bring your pass key to get back in. Man, you’re pretty stupid, too.

* Airports, which offer no relief at all for the smoker after long flights. You could go outside, I guess, but then you’ll have to take on the TSA to get back in. Good luck with that, Marlboro Man.

* Smoking chambers, which still exist at one or two airports around the country. It’s a big glass room filled with smoke. Just walking in there shaves nine years off your life, but you just flew seven hours back from Vegas. Of COURSE you’re going in. Nonsmoking travelers will stand outside and gawk at all the crazy smoking zoo animals.

* Long car trips with nonsmokers. They just don’t understaaaaaaand.

* The disappointment at having waited hours for a smoke and then discovering that it still doesn’t taste very good. After hours without, you expect that smoke to taste like prime rib smothered in cookies. Guess what? There’s probably a prime rib and cookies-flavored vape juice.

And I’ve brought it full circle. Thank you, wonderful world of vape! Now I can go out and buy an $80 pair of trousers with confidence.

Although, I’m not going to.

Mark LaFlamme is a Sun Journal staff writer. He knows only editors are allowed to keep flasks in their desk drawers. Email him at mlaflamme@sunjournal.com.

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