Last night I was listening to 702 and they had this pretty interesting debate going on about Hubbly Bubblies (or Hookah pipes) because apparently a lot of teenage kids are smoking them and it’s destroying their lives.
It’s your typical Little Johnny story where Little Johnny starts out innocently smoking a Hubbly or two with his friends and then a year down the line in mainlining heroine and smoking cocks for cash.
I couldn’t really believe what I was hearing though, they brought in some expert or other who asked the question, What happens when the kids get bored of smoking molasses through water?
The answer, he said, is they replace the water with Vodka. I was totally outraged – what a waste of Vodka! Fucking drink the Vodka you retards!
Then what happens when they get bored of the molasses? Well, then they smoke dagga, through Vodka (siff!). And when they get bored of the dagga? Then they mix mandrax in there, and eventually heroine.
Aaahh, the youth of today. Pretty much identical to the youth of yesterday. I remember back in highschool we tried all kinds of really dangerous and fucked up shit, everything from getting good and wasted on butane to smoking matches (I know, what the fuck?) to drinking metholated spirits strained through bread.
I swear, I would have been a fucking rocket scientist if it weren’t for the massive amounts of damage I did to my brain when I was a kid.
Worst was this one buddy of mine, we’ll call him Duck. Duck came to school one Monday looking like a pile of horse shit and when I asked him how his weekend was, he said Awesome!
‘Dude, you have to try this thing we found out, fucking AMAZING!’
‘What thing?’
‘You have to smoke Myprodol in a cigarette, ffffaaaaahhhhhhkkkkkk!’
‘Mypro-who?’
‘Myprodol dude! Fucking AMAZING!’
‘Yeah, you said… amazing how?’
‘Dude, like, colours and fucking weird sounds and everything!’
‘Um, ok. I think my mom has some, thanks for the good advice.’
Worst. Idea. Ever. It tasted like crap, it tasted worse than crap, it tasted chemical and really, really evil. I snuck out the kitchen door and smoked it in the back yard while my parents were sleeping and all I remember was feeling like my heart was going to burst through my chest and having to hold on to the grass because the world was spinning so fast I was convinced I was gonna fly off it.
Back at school the next day, Mosquito, this little irritating kid asked me why I looked like crap. I grinned.
‘Dude, you have to try this thing we found out…’
As for Hubblies though, I would definitely recommend that kids, and people in general, stay the hell away from them. In varsity we had one for a year or two, but near the end, started noticing that smoking it was becoming as pleasant as sucking a car exhaust pipe.
We tried a lot of different things to clean the Hubbly out, one of which was to detach the hose part and blow into it to see what would come out and no shit, this HUGE cloud of fine black and silvery dust exploded out the end.
‘What the hell is that?’ my digsmate Graumpot asked.
‘No idea dude,’ I replied.
‘Blow again.’
I blew again. A second black and silvery cloud came out.
‘Fuck, have we been breathing this stuff into our lungs?’ Graum asked.
‘I think so…’
‘Huh. I guess that explains why we’ve had pneumonia for the last three months.’
‘I guess it does.’
‘Let’s never smoke Hubbly again.’
‘Let’s do that.’
Out of sheer curiosity we cut the hose open after that and found a crusty, rusted and foul smelling spring coiled inside there.
A spring! That’s what they put inside Hubbly hoses. People, you have been warned.
In other news, I heard a rumour it’s FRIDAY FUCK YEAH! I got one plan and one plan ONLY this weekend and that’s stay the fuck in bed, and I’d urge anyone reading this to do the same.
Until then, stay warm, don’t let the kak weather get you down cause as soon as it breaks and the sun beats down again, strong and hot, we’re all going streaking in the streets 🙂
-ST
Hmmm butane. That shit was awesome until that one time I was watching pitch black and suddenly john travolta in battlefield earth make up came around the corner.
Inhaling gas is bad mmkay.
I’m with you – personally, my friends and I stopped doing it when we noticed this interesting warning on the side of the can that read:
‘Deliberately inhaling highly poisonous butane gas can cause instant death.’
Yeah. Um. Pass.
Hookahs are pure evil. Hookers are too, but that’s a different story.
I owned a few hubblies in my life. Started smoking hubbly in varsity. Innocent enough at the time. The first time I discovered hubblies was at the Rand Easter Show in 2000. My girlfriend’s step father at the time dared me to have a go at one of the hubblies that were on demonstration (back in the days when it was legal to smoke indoors).
I took one or two puffs and it was delicious and not half as harsh on my throat as a cigarette. I had another and I was convinced that I had to have one. So we bought one and it quickly became a part of my daily routine.
Now, I’m not a smoker, I’ve never been a smoker and I’ll never be a smoker, but at the time, I didn’t really classify hubbly as smoking because “it was healthier and 98% of all the toxins are filtered through the water. And there’s such a small amount of nicotine, it’s harnless.” – World’s best marketing campaign ever. Ever.
I smoked at least one hubbly a day for a good five years. In those five years, I developed what I can only liken to the addiction that smokers develop to nicotine and various habits.
I usually smoked hubbly when I was at home watching TV or movies on the couch after work. I also had to have a cup of coffee with it. If a day went by that I didn’t have a hubbly, I’d get jittery, huge cravings, I became lazy and even a little aggro. I had to get my daily fix no matter what, even if it meant having one at 3AM after a jol.
It affected my health, my social life, my relationship with my girlfriend and it literally began controlling me.
It wasn’t until I started hacking up balls of green and yellow mucous, developing sinus problems and high blood pressure that I realised that hubblies aren’t just as bad as smoking, they’re worse – much worse. Just think of all the toxins that you’r inhaling directly from a lit coal, or the toxins that are released from heating up the foil on the top of the tabacco holder.
Like you guys, the hubbly also started tasting crap after a while. I even purchased a new hubbly but the taste was still there.
I decided to give it up about 3 years ago and I’ve never looked back. My health has improved, the cravings are gone and I’m probably going to live longer. But I went through the same withdrawl symptoms that a regular smoker would go through, which just goes to prove that the “small amount of Nicotine” in molassis tobacco is just as dangerous as the amoutns you find in cigarettes.
Yes, they taste nice initially, yes they have the ability to be social, yes, they’re fashionable, but they are definately not a healthier alternative to smoking. People should stay the fuck away from these things because they’re probably worse for you than cigarettes and parents need to wake up to this fact.
I’d never waste Vodka in a hookah… but full-cream milk was pretty cool the one or two time we tried that. They’re cool, but I wouldn’t go so far as owning one. As for being a gateway to drugs? Pah, a beer or a splash of wine at your parents dinner table is the one and only gateway drug.
However give me some hose, foil and a kettle and I could make you something pretty similar to a hookah. Or a gas mask and a watercooler bottle. Or a coke bottle and a bucket. Or just an apple. …but I digress.
interesting site – love the pics.. are they takenm professionally?
Hey Alic, thanks for the props! Stop by any time 😉
Right now I’m running this site on a budget of exactly zip so the images you see here are courtesy of my good friend Google Images.
Have I used your stuff? Please don’t sue me! I’m just a humble blogger on a mission to make everyone on the internet love everyone else on the internet passionately so I can film it and make a million dollars.
-ST