You never know when you are going to take a turn at a corner and be struck by change. Although I knew this on intellectual level I never had really realized how truth it holds. This truism applies for most situations and these situations may actually turn your life around.

I will start with a prelude of sorts. I am really Competitive. I mean that my picture could be placed in the dictionary right next to competitive. It is not something that I am particularly proud it is just the way I am.

 Although our parents weren't very eager about it me and my 4 siblings were a bunch of hyperactive, competitive and sore losers little savages ( my mother always claimed that it was from my father's part of the family but looking at her pictures with my unless I think that it may all be coming from her). Anyway we were competing for all sorts of things. Once I famously had to go to the hospital after eating 4 jars of peanut butter just to prove that I can. Do you get my point? So as it happens in life I grew older (not necessarily wiser) and tried to put most of my embarrassing childhood behind.  And I had done a really good job of doing so until one of my brothers come visiting and told most of our childhood stories to my 2 roommates.

And as soon as he did that as if the genie was released out of the bottle. It all started in the next day after he visited, innocently enough with the bet who could eat the most bananas. The bet was won by one of my roommates who managed to eat 27 peeled bananas for 36 minutes and from then it  was known as The Baboon ( strangely I have never seen him eat a banana since then). This bet was the beginning of the slippery slope for me and my roommates. To add a twist were throwing small household chores in the pot as bets. Washing the dishes, doing the laundry, throwing the waste these chores turned into a type of home currency for us.


The bets were getting increasingly difficult, until one day both of my roommates ( The Baboon and Washy ( his nickname after doing the all the laundry for 2 months )  decided that I couldn't give up smoking for one year. And if I could I wouldn't have to do any house work for as long as we were living together and in addition to that they would do all the shopping and if I failed I would have to do it all …alone. It was clear that they wanted to end the whole thing with a bang and were sure I would fail. So I took the bet.

And it was hard, really hard. I could have lied and sneak a smoke while I was at work, but it wouldn't be fair. So after about a week in which I almost broke I found a way to make it through - Electronic cigarettes! It isn't smoking it is vaping! After I explained it to them, and started vaping with pleasure I saw their hopes crumble.