I’m a man in my 30’s who still has to carry around a damn inhaler. I’ve had asthma for as long as I can remember. When you’re a kid having bad lungs is apart of life. You keep the yellow saviour AKA albuterol on the bench just in case. Your parents pack it in your bag when you go to sleep over your friend’s house, and god help me if I go over a friends house and they have shaggy ass animals who they allow all over the furniture. I might actually have to break out the machine with the scary mask that makes you sound like Darth Vadar (full disclosure: i don’t like Star Wars but I do appreciate a villain with breathing problems).
Most people grow out of their asthma and go on to run all the miles for fun and play pickup basketball without fear of having to take a 15 min break and several hits of the puffer just to feel like you’re not gonna die from lack of breath. But since I’m not most people and I have the lung capacity of an eight year old who smokes Newports I still carry around my puffer wherever I go. Also have a deadly peanut allergy, but I don’t carry around an epi pen tho cause I choose to live a little bit more dangerously and just try to stay away from thai food and people eating those nasty ass orange peanut cracker snacks.
I feel like we’re friends now and I can share with you some painfully awkward moments in my asthmatic adventures. One is a triumph over weak lungs thanks to a strong mack game. The next one is about why i put my inhaler either in a bag or in my back pocket when I go out. The last story is about as painfully awkward as it gets involving a one night stand and my inhaler.
So first the fun story. Lemme paint a brief picture of the time we were living in. I was a fresh faced early 20’s brotha with the dopest fro of the early 2000’s. I was working at a shoe store at the time. I didn’t have cable so I didn’t understand why white people were so enamored with Rick James screaming “I’m Rick James bitch” all of a sudden or who the hell Avon Barksdale was. Yet I digress. So I’m at work hanging xxxl throwbacks, cause that’s what was the hot shit at the time, and this girl comes over and asks about some shoes. I stop and help her. Shorty was cute. So I go grab her some shoes and I’m thinkin to myself I gotta holler at this girl. It was the early parts of fall and the weather changing destroys my breathing so of course I had my inhaler on me. I was talking to her and for some reason I couldn’t catch my breath, started wheezing and coughing so I took out my inhaler and took a couple puffs. In front of this super pretty girl, without skipping a beat I tell her, “sorry bout that, you just took my breath away”. She smiled and laughed. I got my lungs back in order and got her number. We kicked it a bit but that was about it. If i was some corny ass brotha that line wouldn’t have worked. But it did and i’m proud of my younger self for being cool as a fan in Japan! I just wish my next inhaler interaction with a lady was a bit smoother…lemme rephrase that. I wish my next inhaler interaction with a lady never fuckin happened.
So check it. Even back in my crazy goin out days I was never a club dude. My social anxiety and not wanting to spend 8.75 on a bud light kept me away. At this point in my life I was more going to punk bars and hitting as many shows as possible. But every now and then I’d throw caution and bills to the wind and venture to Scottsdale for some club action.
I had to buy new clothes because all i had was black jeans and band shirts and I wouldn’t have gotten in with my Cursive shirt and tight gap jeans. At this time everyone had to have a button up cause Jay-Z said so. Fine! I’ll go find a gaudy ass button up and a normal pair of jeans. I was ready to go. Had clean clothes on and my trusty inhaler in my right pocket. We get to the club and of course I’m already complaining cause I’m sure i’m missing out on some weird strange I could’ve met at The Rogue. It’s just not my scene, but whatever I’m gonna have fun anyway. We was half lit anyway so I just rolled with it. Also, at this time there was more fun hip hop being played than that EDM or Dubstep business they play now. Ying-Yang Twinz, Usher, Lil Jon, Luda Cam’ron, etc. so it was cool. We get in and I start gettin that liquid courage in me and I hit the dance floor tuff! I’m a dancin fool. When i’m drunk I’ll do more than just my same old two step and that night we was on one. 
So i’m dancing with this sexy ass sista and we gettin it in and she stops, turns around and gives me this weird ass look. I’m drunk and befuddled and look at her like “where the booty go?” She points down at my crotch saying I got a boner and she didn’t appreciate that. I took umbrage to her accusation cause it was just my inhaler. I drunkenly, and with zero fucks pull out my inhaler and show her that it’s not my dick, it’s a little ass inhaler. She looks at me and laughs, IN MY FACE! I realized I just pulled out medicine cause my lungs ain’t shit in front of a pretty girl at a club and I was standing on the floor like a dummy with his inhaler in his hand. The night at the club for me was over. I ended up hitting up The Rogue and going to Palo Verde where I could have asthma without retribution. It taught me a valuable lesson tho. Be smart and put that hard plastic inhaler in your back pocket when hanging with ladies.
My last inhaler story is awkward enough to turn into a sketch at an improv show! So i’m maybe either 29 or 30 at the time. I have all the crazy going out and drinking every night out of my system. At this point in my life I just watch woody allen movies, listen to Jazz, exist and have fun. Nothing’s forced.
I like to go out by myself and grab a drink every now and then. Don’t judge me. Drinking solo is dope as long as you don’t get hammered wasted and start some bullmess with the other patrons. Sometimes it’s fruitless and a waste of time but sometimes drinking alone can turn into drinking with a pretty girl. I was getting a bit tipsy and decided that the best course of action was NOT to go home but to text this random ass girl who i never really hit up before. So I drunkenly texted her a nice “Sup” text. Lame I know, but I wasn’t even expecting a response.
She texted me back on some let’s kick it shit. Bet! We meet up at a different bar. We proceeded to get drunk and have all the fun. She wanted to go back to her spot and do the “netflix and chill” before it became the meme of 2015. We messed around and I stayed the night. Her bed was waaaay more comfortable than mine. Pillow game was on point. So I shake the spot super early, like 6ish without waking her up or saying bye. I get home and go back to sleep cause drunk sleep ain’t sleep. My lungs are feeling kinda congested and stuffed up. I look around for my trusty inhaler and IT’S NOT THERE!
I don’t panic yet cause I just kinda left a trail of clothes and crumpled receipts from the front door to my bedroom and it’s gotta be there. I go and scour the apartment and my bright ass yellow inhaler is nowhere to be found.
I sober up very quickly because I realized i left my inhaler over ol’ girls house. The girl who I didn’t say goodbye to. The girl who I just texted on a drunken humbug. The girl who I had a one night stand with. I figured my breathing isn’t so bad that I have to call this girl and ask if I left my inhaler at her spot. I’ll deal with shortness of breath over having to call a girl who isn’t my girlfriend “hey what’s up, so i think i may have left my inhaler at your house.”
These experiences are exactly why I will love being married. She can get me my asthma medicine and epi pens and i’ll fill her prescriptions when she has the whooping cough or a headache cause the girl she works with is getting on her last nerve.
WeBetterThanThat 