Carpe Diem

He’d recently completed a course on staff motivation.

I swear, that man made me loathe the fact that Robin Williams had ever been born – let alone be responsible for “Dead Poet’s Society”. I have since forgiven William’s even if I did have to go on to suffer the outrageously bad “Toys”.

Seize the bloody day?

No, actually, I’m too busy thinking of ways to make it look like I’m working (while doing as little as possible) in return for the pittance you pay me. After one day too many I gleefully, on impulse, resigned before I had a seizure or seized a part of his anatomy. I was considered such an asset to the firm that it was accepted, my car keys were demanded and I was walked back to the reception door within minutes.

I could have told the wife that evening “I was just carpe dieming it, sweetie” but chose a more diplomatic approach. I told her I’d quit through the bathroom door while she was having a post-work soak…and immediately left for the pub.

“Carpe diem, Dave! Carpe diem!”

It was roughly six hours ago, as I sit here typing, that I got the news. We’d known it was coming even though the pair of them had played it down. To be frank, I didn’t think it or I would make a blog post but then I reasoned, as vapers, we are all attempting to seize days from the grasp of cancer. Roger passed away peacefully under sedation.

“Carpe diem, Dave! Carpe diem!”

Some of us have taken up vaping in order to escape from cigarettes, the rest of us are using vaping to prevent our return. Sure, it’s more than just that, for loads of us. It has become an absorbing hobby, a chance to collect things, an opportunity to learn and tinker and a pleasurable pastime.

It’s on days like these you take stock. Football results matter less, a cuddle with the youngest means so much more. The cider tastes sweeter, the vape is more fulfilling because it is one more day wrestled from the inevitable. It’s on days like these people decide to start out in business or sell their possessions in order to get a motorbike, hard luggage and a map of the world.

“Carpe diem, Dave! Carpe diem!”

I returned from the pub at a quite respectable hour. Daylight was still to fully ebb from the skyline, there had been just enough moments passing by for me to seek fortitude in alcohol so I could face a woman in a bathrobe. I was considered such an asset to ‘the couple’ that the wrath I’d anticipated was nothing more than an “I’m not surprised”.

This was true; it would have taken something of spectacular stupidity for me to surprise her. This, after all, is the man who has been arrested for attempted theft of a ladder at pub closing time because it seemed like a funny thing to do. This, her partner and future husband, is the man who had once though it was a good idea to buy a Polski Fiat, a Leyland Princess and two houses at the height of the last two property bubbles.

Vaping was one of the few life decisions I’ve ever made with her wholehearted support. That, and leaving teaching to begin writing – although she did put a block on my first choice of becoming Britain’s fattest astronaut. She supported my vaping even though it has the “highly addictive nicotine” drug we are warned about so often. All of which brings me to the Bill Hicks quote that sums today up for me:

“Today, a young man on acid realized that all matter is merely energy condensed to a slow vibration – that we are all one consciousness experiencing itself subjectively. There is no such thing as death, life is only a dream, and we are the imagination of ourselves. Here’s Tom with the weather.”

It’s the end of the week: go seize some days, get your vape on, give out some love and be happy. I’m going to carpe me some diem.