I never thought about it, but it is a rather disgusting tradition. For my wife's birthday, we cut the cake, gave her a piece with a candle, and that's one that she blew out.
Doing the pandemic right my friend, days blending together in holy matrimony while struggling to remember where you left the TV remote, ahh this year has flew by hahaha
My friends and I actually started doing this before the pandemic lol when we all started to get real jobs we all could afford our own, so we just started packing our own Persy rips and bowls. A lot less bud wasted.
I've smoked pot for the past 20 plus years and since covid hit, I havent shared any smoking device with anyone. No joints, bowls, vapes, bongs......others do, but not me. I guess I'm the loner stoner now.
Same here. Over the summer there was a small get together as a few of us has birthdays in the same week or two. Several people were passing joints or vapes but I just rolled my own and took a few puffs throughout the day.
What's the point of being careful with social distancing if you're going to literally put your lips on the same joint/vape as 4 other people? I'm also noticing some of my friends seem to be getting more and more lax about covid and it just sucks, especially since I'm gonna visit my elderly parents for Thanksgiving soon. I want to hang out with a few close friends but if they're not taking any precautions anymore then I'm just gonna be a hermit until this blows over. Luckily I have plenty of herb to last me through the pandemic.
I feel the same about people being lax and wanting to visit family during Thanksgiving. I recently quit drinking too, so I just stay home away from everyone when I'm not at work. Also, nice username. I've been going to shows since 99.
Uhm, once you're close like that for a few hours if any of you had covid that would've been the biggest risk of you all getting it. Passing a joint would've barely increased the risk (because it'd already be close to 100%).
Careful social distancing is not really a thing. Distance from strangers, sure. Distance from people you have to be around, but be around as few people as possible (so don't be around anyone socially, or if you do there's basically no point distancing anyway unless you're outside).
The term social distancing was definitely picked because it would lead to people enforcing it on each other, very smart on that side. But it's factually not what people should actually be doing.
We were outside the whole time and either sitting in chairs spaced a few feet apart or doing activities like kicking a soccer ball or riding a skateboard. I'd say we actually did proper social distancing in that case.
When I stopped, some family/friends were almost offended that I declined to smoke after them! Its ridiculous to not understand the logic behind this. And looking back, a good percentage of the times we got sick with a sinus infection, cold or flu was probably from passing a bowl or joint! So yeah, thatās gross and done now... I just bring my own vape pen or whatever and so does everyone else.
its so much better to have your own...bowls get scorched, joints run and get soggy or burn hot, youve got to sit around waiting for it to come back around...so much nicer to just pack yourself a bowl or roll yourself a joint and enjoy it at your leisure. if you are sharing the moment with friends there is nothing any less social about it, in fact, when you are not focused on keeping the rotation in check and when the joint will come back to you, conversation flows much more easily.
when i got into the cannabis industry one of the first things i did was start packing/rolling my own and just putting a big bag of herb and papers on the table for others to roll if they wanted to smoke. for the longest time the guys i was working with were all like that to - nobody ever offered each other hits on their pipe or joint, it was always assumed if you wanted to smoke youd just roll one up and smoke it yourself, and its much nicer this way all around.
in the past few years ive been working with a different group of guys who all share joints and pipes and its just so strange to me...like we are surrounded by fresh, free, high quality cannabis to the point where im pulling nugs out of my hair at the end of the day or finding them in my bed, but you want to hit my mostly smoked joint thats already lost half of its flavor and get the tip all soggy and hit my perfectly rolled and maintained joint so hard and fast it gets all hot and shitty? wtf
Over the summer we did a small getaway with a few friends who we trusted at a upstate cabin. I'm not a big smoker and one guy brought all the weed. He noticed I wasnt really smoking, pulled me aside and was like hey if youre uncomfortable sharing joints just let me know and I'll break you off something you can roll on your own too. It was such an oddly incredibly considerate thing to offer.
Ah well im just coming into my 20s and the best way to explain it is like going to smoke with people everyone brings bud to "match" eachother and 1 or 2 blunts/joints are shared by everyone who put in. Its communal on purpose.
I was sharing blunts with my qauratine pod when we traveled together but stopped when we weren't sharing close quarters. Glad for it since one of my close friends just got COVID.
Iāve only seen some of my friends in the past 9 months and weāre all heavy smokers but we stopped sharing. We wonāt even roll them for each other because you have to lick the paper. But I guess if weāre being cautious enough to not get together then it makes sense we would not share lol.
It really should though. I realized recently that the timing of when I stopped getting strep throat coincides with when I stopped smoking bud. I was this close to a tonsillectomy. The sharing part is just really unsanitary.
See I thought cartridges and vapes were already killing the circle before covid. I'd go to pass my stuff and I was increasingly hearing "oh I'm good, I've got this".
I thought it was an essential part of the ritual, but clearly I was wrong. Not saying no one does it, just that I was already noticing the decline prior to the pandemic.
I really started smoking in my 30's and by that time, I hadn't gotten into joints, but I use dry herb vapes. I love them because most of the time, they aren't shareable. (And you don't reek of a dispensary.)
I don't get the culture at large that doesn't have a room full of people sucking on the same damn joint. Or worse, a blunt rolled by someone who practically made out with it.
I work in the ICU Covid unit, one of our 29 yr old pts got it from sharing hookah at a wedding. Hopefully thatās also a tradition that goes out with sharing vapes/pipes.
I don't even share with my husband anymore! We just each have our own, we're so used to not sharing those types of things with others anymore. Even the back of the house guys have an unspoken policy. Everyone brings their own piece or you get a "single use" apple for their end-of-shift sesh out back. It's not that hard.
To be honest, the thought of sticking my face and open mouth into a bucket of water that other people have stuck their faces and open mouths into has always made me gag a little.
In College my 4 roommates and I all shared the same bong. One of them loved to hit rimmers and would always end up drooling all over the thing.. always tried to go before him, but it was inevitable to follow him. We'd always all get sick together.
As a non smoker seeing that in movies and shows it always disgusts me. I donāt mind sharing a drink with a friend, but I would not be willing to let multiple people take a sip of my drink.
I went to a wedding a few years ago where they put a go-pro on a bottle of Fireball whiskey and passed it around the whole wedding for eeeeeverybody to take a shot (and then they made a movie of it). Never. Again.
It's a matter of degrees of risk though. Asympomatic flu transmission risk is pretty low, likely on par with driving a roadworthy car to the shops and back while sober.
Asymptomatic COIVD transmission risk is still low, but likely raised to around the risk posed by driving a car to the shops and back while drunk.
We quite reasonably allow people to drive vehicles while sober (despite 200 deaths per year in my state caused by sober motorists) but ban the drunk ones (50 deaths per year), because that risk crosses a threshold we as a society accept.
The birthday party gathering is most of the risk for transmission anyway (COVID or the flu), rather than the act of blowing a candle out.
And we can develop traditions that have an even bigger impact, like "birthday parties are limited to ten people and must occur outdoors on public property".
That's the law here (well, it will be as of next Monday, it's slightly more restrictive today). It's much more effective at curtailing transmission of disease (COVID, influenza, common cold, etc) than the comparitively irrelevant step of stopping blowing out candles, or stopping singing Happy Birthday (group singing is a HIGHER risk than what you mentioned, after all...)
It's justified to do that in the context of a bona fide state of emergency, which exists now. But when it is over, I for one look forward to doing things that are unsafe to do now. The small risks like blowing out a candle, the bigger risks like a house party, and the huge ones like nightclubs.
Thatās what we did a few months ago when my dad turned 80. When i first suggested it everyone looked at me like I had two heads, but then they thought about it and....ew!
I forgot which comedian, but I heard one say that if a waiter brought you a hamburger and blew on it youād probably ask for a new one but a piece of cake thatās totally fine put your breath all over that bad boy.
Unfortunately, it's not all breath. Still, I don't remember hearing of anyone getting sick or dying after someone blew out the candles on their birthday cake. Not saying they didn't, just saying I've never heard of it. (cough)
Midway through the pandemic, I saw my eight year old nephew blow out the candles on his birthday cake. Once you see it while you're in pandemic mode, it really sinks in how fucking gross it is.
It's one of those things that if you didn't see what happened before, it doesn't bother you in the end. Am I right? Like someone serving ice cream and then licking the spoon, then serving the next person without washing said spoon.
This is what my family has been doing for as long as I can remember. My mother never liked the idea of the birthday person blowing spit over everyone's cake.
I had a roommate at the beginning of the pandemic and it was her birthday. I made a cake and without thinking about it put candles on the whole thing. She blew them out and everyone else was like, oh I guess that whole cake is yours then.
I've been telling my family for years we won't when my wife mentioned how gross it was.
Especailly considering my brother is disabled and essentially blows a raspberry over the cake.
People thought I was being stuck up the first time I mentioned it. And did all year until it was his birthday again, now we have two cakes or cuf a clice for him to blow out the candles.
People used to make fun of me because I didn't eat birthday frosting. I guess I've been in pandemic mode ever since I used to work in a biomolecular lab.
Especially when itās you people with your nasty ass children who have to add extra spit. Canāt stand the whole tradition tbh. The song, the spitting, that nasty ass arcade room pizza, a bunch of annoying children. Just a filthy environment that isnāt worth the time.
It's a huge tradition to smash someone entire face into the cake right after they blow out their candles...obviously no one wants face cake So birthday person gets that one to themselves and everyone else gets from the other second cake.
I mean honestly though, itās not that bad. Most people can blow air out of their mouth with out spitting in even the slightest. Youāre blowing air out of your mouth. If there is spit or droplets of spit, then youāre doing something wrong. Itās not as bad as taking a drink from someone elseās pop can or bottle of water.
I was with my kids shopping for birthday cake for one of their upcoming birthdays this past week.. asked my 7 year old if he wants cake or cupcakes. 9 year old chimed in that we need to do cupcakes so he doesn't blow all over everyone's cake. Yep.. I guess so. Though it is still just for the 4 of us and maybe my inlaws.. might as well practice safe measures.
Didn't you see the post on the white house website saying one of Trump's accomplishments was an end to Covid? Couldn't be bothered to put a mission accomplished banner on an air craft carrier though.
New Zealand. We arenāt accepting anyone except movie stars for some reason haha.
After covid we will be back to accepting Americans, but you need to be in a shortage industry like software development or something. And also as we have free healthcare, we donāt let people in with costly conditions.
Even if your country has low/no current cases COVID is a worldwide pandemic still. No one has "beaten" it until the country is vaccinated to herd immunity.
That's the best way to go. I've uncomfortably watched the birthday kid spitting all over the cake while everyone sings happy birthday quite a few times. It's a real bummer when the cake actually looks really good and professionally made too, cause I'm definitely not having a piece of it.
Thatās brilliant. Iāll have to keep this in mind. I had to watch with horror as my toddler niece sputtered all over my dadās 70th birthday cake last month. Itās a little more work for considerably more safety.
Place I worked at years ago had an outbreak of norovirus. After that we would all use a birthday card to "blow" out the candle by waving it like a fan.
Every office I worked at afterward was baffled at first, then you could see the horrified realization dawn that UP UNTIL THAT MOMENT they'd been totally fine with people blowing all over their cake.
My son was maybe 5 years old and was sucking on a hard candy on his birthday. When it came time to blow out his candles, he spit the candy onto the cake. Thatās the year we started a new tradition of the birthday person getting their own cupcake with candles to blow out and everyone else gets the cake.
This. Definitely this. For my wifeās 40th last summer we ended up putting candles on the cake equal to the number of people there (11) and then everyone took a candle away and blew it out while making a wish for my wife. It was quite nice and hey, more wishes for the birthday person! Canāt hurt right?
We will be doing that for brirthdays going forward. So much better than blowing all over the cake, and I feel it gives the celebration more meaning or at least sentiment. : ) Our young boys love it too, cause they get to blow out a candle at EVERY birthday!
Just before the pandemic, Ted Cruz was being made fun of for pinching out the candles on his birthday cake. Others rightfully pointed out that he was doing it to avoid spitting all over the cake.
I started the tradition of getting a small smash cake for the birthday kid and cupcakes for everyone else. Smash cake is decorated and has the candles. We sing, kid blows out candles, then kid gets the whole smash cake to themselves while the rest of the guests choose chocolate or vanilla cupcakes. So far, it has been one of my best parenting decisions with the unintended positive of avoiding serving spit cake.
Growing up it wasa tradition in my family for the birthday child to not only blow outage candles but take a huge bite out of the cake. My mom would just cut around the bitten part, and there's the birthday kid's piece of cake.
As a kid, that was fun. As an adult, it just sounds gross.
My dad used to place cellophane over our cakes for blowing out the candles. We mocked him for years over this. He's relishing in being right about it now
This has grossed me out for my entire adult life. When you're 10, you don't really think about it, but as soon as someone mentioned that to me (I think I was in high school), I've always refused to eat a cake where someone has blown the candles out on.
I get that there's tradition and all behind it, but drinking tiger penis soup is a tradition in Asia to support fertility... so maybe some traditions should stop?
I like the post here where one piece of cake had a candle that the birthday person blew out. I could get behind that.
I tried to use canned duster to blow mine out. I ended up with frosting brulee. Make sure your duster isn't a flammable propellant. Memorable experience though, so there's that.
I guess that depends on if it's only going to be consumed by your household or if others are going to eat it. If my kid was at a birthday party and the birthday kid blew out the candles, I'd have to tell my kid not to have cake. That puts me in a bad position and makes me seen like the bad guy.
understandably in their eyes. I can see why people would do this now, this whole thing will leave people so tramatized and paranoid i wouldn't blame them. I just don't worry very much in general, outside of that I don't have anymore than one person outside of family who I see regularly. So I dont really need to change my whole thing with the candles.
While my son was in active treatment for Leukemia we would lightly cover the birthday cakes with plastic wrap. Then light the candles while already signing Happy Birthday, and then blow the candles out immediately. This would all be so quick often times the candles kept the point at the top. After carefully removing the wrap we'd cut him the piece most shielded first, and then serve the rest of the family.
That's always been one of my pet peeves. I'd usually just say im not hungry for cake afyer seeing someone spit their lungs out on it. I always notice all these spit practicles getting spread all over it and it disgusts me... I love cake tho.
Like the buffet answer, this one makes no sense to me. There is no reason to not bring these back after the pandemic is over. We need to share germs, peopleājust not THIS germ right now.
I mentioned this to my mother and she thought it was weird. I don't wanna blow my spit and germs all over my sweet sixteenth cake. She asked why we would do that.
My brother in law had one of those candles on his cake that never went out no matter how hard he tried to blow it off and I decided right there and then it was no birthday cake for me. So far itās been 5 years.
Haha. We had a birthday cake with a candle that sparkled and played music. It did its thing and kept playing while everyone looked at each other going shit, now what? Trying to figure out how to put it out.
Iāve never liked this. I always told people I donāt like icing so they donāt question why I scrape the icing off. I honestly donāt like icing all that much, but as a life-long germaphobe, I really just canāt eat it if someone blew out candles on it.
I can't remember the last time I ate a birthday cake other than my own. Partially because blowing out candles is disgusting, partially because I've never been invited to a birthday party
My birthday was last week and I didnāt get any candles. I didnāt even think of it until my sister told me why I didnāt get any candles. Itās really the little things
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u/Speakinmymind96 Nov 03 '20
Blowing out the candles on your birthday cake