Vape or smoke ?

The bartender looked at me in disbelief and shook his head. “I don’t know who you are trying to kid but no one smokes cigarettes anymore, not even the cops. You’re going to have to leave.” I simply thanked him and left, still trying to fathom the scene I’d just witnessed.

I suddenly heard two distinct voices. “He tastes like iqos!” I looked back but there was no one there. I turned my head toward the voices. Just then, a figure came out of the shadows, setting a heavy, almost musky-smelling cigar on my front stoop.

“Thought you were gonna ditch us,” another voice said from behind the cigar. I quickly looked behind the cigar to find a smoking, gray-skinned man holding up two cigarettes. “I never did like iqos. Looks like Dubai has brought back my favorite.”

I quickly turned back to see the cigar pull out from behind the cigar, setting it on the stoop as the new man lit up his cigar, puffing a thick stream of smoke toward me and saying, “Yeah, emphysema, you don’t want that.”

“Hey, I’m not an idiot. I know what smoke smells like,” I said, trying to take my mind off of the cigar-smoking stranger on my stoop. “Now I know what iqos is. I’ve tried it and it’s really terrible. But thanks anyway.”

My friends appeared in the doorway, all lined up with their heads tilted to the side to look at me. “That was so funny,” one said, smacking his leg with his hand.

“No. No it wasn’t,” said another. “No one smokes anymore. No one in Dubai smokes. The last thing Dubai needs is a bunch of teenagers trying to smoke cigarettes, or smoke iqos, or vape, or e-cig, whatever they’re calling it. The police are already on the take. Now, you’re going to be in for a big, big shock. I’m a policeman. I’m getting paid to bust cigarettes.”

The entire scene seemed surreal, almost like I was watching someone else’s story play out. “Let’s go,” said a third voice, pulling me out of my mental haze. “Let’s go. We’ve got a long drive back to Dubai, and I want to go back soon, so we’ll be heading out soon.”

You can buy IQOS heets. There is a huge variety of flavors at competitive prices. This is one of the best shops in Dubai

I looked at the four of them and could tell from their panicked faces that they wanted to leave as badly as I did. All four of us piled into my friend’s car, and just as I shut my door, the stranger pulled out his e-cig. He sucked on the ember and took another quick puff on the glowing stick, setting it in the center console of the car.

“Come on, let’s go. Dubai’s already paying for our drive home. Don’t need a smoke in my car,” said the policeman, still laughing at my jokes. “I’m gonna drive, though. I haven’t driven in a while, so this will be interesting. Hopefully I can figure out how to steer the car back to Dubai without stopping at a gas station.”

My friends shook their heads and sighed, starting up the car and pulling out of the parking lot. “Not much longer now,” said the policeman. Hopefully I won’t break an axle on the drive back.” He smiled at me, flashing his caramel-colored teeth, still puffing on his ember.

“Don’t worry,” said the gas station attendant, spotting me and waving to me from the door. “He’ll be okay. Good luck to you all.”

“Good luck to you, too,” I said to him, waving to him as I hurried inside to grab some gas. I paid him for my gas and left, giving the same brief goodbye to the gas station attendant as I went out the door. I waited for the fumes to dissipate in the air. My friends were talking excitedly. “I’ve never been on a long drive back from Dubai before. That was fun. We should do that more often.”

“Yeah,” said the girl in the middle, sucking on the tip of the vape. “E-cig. I just love e-cig. That smoke is so much nicer than the real thing. I know I’m talking like an idiot, but I want to smoke cigarettes, and I do, but you know, I can’t. So, e-cig it is.”

“I’m in love with the smell of a cigarette,” said the boy on my right. “E-cig is nice, too, but I’m kinda addicted to cigarette smoke. I just love it so much. I’m just addicted to smoke, and it makes me feel alive, so e-cig it is. I want to smoke a cigarette so bad.”

“Yeah,” said the girl on my left. “E-cig is so nice, and they can’t get rid of them. Smokers need to quit, and they need to quit, but the government won’t. So I’ll just be vaping and smoking for the next few years. I mean, the smoke in Dubai is terrible, but at least I know I’m still trying to quit.”

I watched them go on, discussing all the things they loved about smoking. I didn’t know how they could be so comfortable talking about smoking when they could never have a cigarette in their mouths.

And so I started on a long drive back to Dubai. The smell of cigarette smoke followed me all the way back, and I was back at work. I met with my boss for a quick chat, and my boss told me about the hundreds of e-cig shops in Dubai. He thought I was crazy, but he said that people were starting to turn their backs on the real thing. Many of his employees tried e-cigs and failed. They were going back to the real thing. So, he wasn’t worried. At least he still had jobs for his employees.

All the salesmen in Dubai were starting to pick up on the trends, too. The iqos. Dubai had all their products. When the iqos first came out, everyone thought it would be an instant hit. But people quickly discovered that the e-cig sucked, and they stopped buying it. They turned to the more well-known brands, the other e-cig companies. Some of them were still trying to sell it to those customers, but they couldn’t keep up with the demand. The local stores, though, had plenty of inventory, and they knew how to use it. The tobacco industry’s supply was weak, so Dubai was putting in the time and effort to make it stronger.