Even if you've done everything up to now all by yourself, if you used a transparent juice, you will need a loved one to examine the Kleenex for you, as you won't be able to tell when Reverse Puffing ceases to cause the appearance of little droplets of juice on the Kleenex.
When the Kleenex is clean, ask someone to look at the silvery bottom part and tell you if any rogue juice droplets are hiding out there, and wipe it off carefully.
While they're looking, ask them to hold it up to one of their functional eyes, peer into the little hole in the hat, and ascertain that light can be seen.
Now just set it down for a minute and smile at it proudly while we talk about something.
You can either let your newly-filled cartomizers repose, or not.
Again, lively debate rages on.
Based on my extremely limited personal experience, cartomizers that have sat around for a while perform more like those that have been filled by specially trained professionals than those that have not, but as with the hatless repose on the folded Kleenex, I strongly suspect that the properties of the specific juice used will be a factor, as will the level of humidity in the ambient air in which all this takes place.
The important takeaway here is that time required to obtain filled cartomizers can potentially exceed 48 hours. This means we will have to use the "o" word again, and work out a system, overproducing on our good days to compensate for the Days We Hope Will Be Better Tomorrow.
Even people who believe it should repose for 7 or 19 or 3.147 hours will concede, albeit grudgingly, that your newly-filled cartomizer is technically and theoretically ready to puff.
But before you slap it on your electric hookah-doodle and go to town, let's establish some guidelines, for our emotional protection:
This is, after all, your very first attempt at cartomizer filling.
It's kind of like that old saying about the dog that walks on his hind legs - it isn't that he does it very well, it's remarkable that he does it at all.
That we, despite our various limitations, long lists of diseases and Medical Sagas that occupy whole file drawers at the Shaman's tent - we, for whom looking at things is minimally, if at all, informative, with our trembling hands, our nerve-trashed fingertips, our sporadic and ever-fluctuating but always rather vague grasp on things like which way up is, exactly, have not only successfully gotten juice into Barbie tumblers in addition to all over ourselves and the surrounding area, but gone on to push cylinders repeatedly into the juice - and all this after labeling something, and making decisions that require more cognitive function than we've been able to count on having since the cutting edge of communication technology was a pink Princess phone, THAT is our accomplishment.
THAT is why, if this world worked like it ought to, Christiane Amanpour would be there right now with a camera crew, sticking a microphone in our face, while the Four Notes that have come to mean Breaking News to the whole wide world resound in our ears.
THAT is why we will walk around for the rest of the week proud as a penguin with a new powder puff!
Next time, it will be easier. The third time, easier still. And while the cartomizers we fill may never be exactly like the ones filled by specially trained professionals in factories, they will, at some point, become perfectly serviceable, and will take their place as fully functional members of the stellar team of inanimate objects that make up our Upgrade Arsenal.
Today, we have taken the first step toward that happy day.
OK. Cheese-fest over. Go ahead and hook one up to your electric hookah-doodle and puff it proudly!
NEXT: Intermediate Class: How The Hale and Hearty Do It
When the Kleenex is clean, ask someone to look at the silvery bottom part and tell you if any rogue juice droplets are hiding out there, and wipe it off carefully.
While they're looking, ask them to hold it up to one of their functional eyes, peer into the little hole in the hat, and ascertain that light can be seen.
Now just set it down for a minute and smile at it proudly while we talk about something.
You can either let your newly-filled cartomizers repose, or not.
Again, lively debate rages on.
Based on my extremely limited personal experience, cartomizers that have sat around for a while perform more like those that have been filled by specially trained professionals than those that have not, but as with the hatless repose on the folded Kleenex, I strongly suspect that the properties of the specific juice used will be a factor, as will the level of humidity in the ambient air in which all this takes place.
The important takeaway here is that time required to obtain filled cartomizers can potentially exceed 48 hours. This means we will have to use the "o" word again, and work out a system, overproducing on our good days to compensate for the Days We Hope Will Be Better Tomorrow.
Even people who believe it should repose for 7 or 19 or 3.147 hours will concede, albeit grudgingly, that your newly-filled cartomizer is technically and theoretically ready to puff.
But before you slap it on your electric hookah-doodle and go to town, let's establish some guidelines, for our emotional protection:
This is, after all, your very first attempt at cartomizer filling.
It's kind of like that old saying about the dog that walks on his hind legs - it isn't that he does it very well, it's remarkable that he does it at all.
That we, despite our various limitations, long lists of diseases and Medical Sagas that occupy whole file drawers at the Shaman's tent - we, for whom looking at things is minimally, if at all, informative, with our trembling hands, our nerve-trashed fingertips, our sporadic and ever-fluctuating but always rather vague grasp on things like which way up is, exactly, have not only successfully gotten juice into Barbie tumblers in addition to all over ourselves and the surrounding area, but gone on to push cylinders repeatedly into the juice - and all this after labeling something, and making decisions that require more cognitive function than we've been able to count on having since the cutting edge of communication technology was a pink Princess phone, THAT is our accomplishment.
THAT is why, if this world worked like it ought to, Christiane Amanpour would be there right now with a camera crew, sticking a microphone in our face, while the Four Notes that have come to mean Breaking News to the whole wide world resound in our ears.
THAT is why we will walk around for the rest of the week proud as a penguin with a new powder puff!
Next time, it will be easier. The third time, easier still. And while the cartomizers we fill may never be exactly like the ones filled by specially trained professionals in factories, they will, at some point, become perfectly serviceable, and will take their place as fully functional members of the stellar team of inanimate objects that make up our Upgrade Arsenal.
Today, we have taken the first step toward that happy day.
OK. Cheese-fest over. Go ahead and hook one up to your electric hookah-doodle and puff it proudly!
NEXT: Intermediate Class: How The Hale and Hearty Do It
