A few days ago I was stood outide the university shop finishing my cigarette before going in and a girl came out who had just bought a pack. She asked me for a light and I obliged, however, I noticed that when she took the clear wrapping off the deck and opened it she took out one cigarette, turned it upside down, and put it back in the pack. Then she took out a different cigarette and lit that one. I asked her why she did that and she replied that it was a superstition of hers, for good luck she would turn one cigarette upside down and smoke that one last.
Anyone else heard of this strange practice or any other weird habits people have?
That’s not even the strangest cigarette habit I’ve seen. I knew a guy when I was in the Army that opened his packs from the bottom. That way, when he grabbed one with greasy hands (he was a mechanic, BTW), it didn’t soil up the filter end.
The ritual you describe was known around here 20+ years ago when I started smoking. Thankfully, I quit over six months ago!
When I was in Germany the kids there considered it bad luck to light a cigarette off of a candle. You had to use a match or a lighter or even a piece of paper lit from the candle, but never cig-to-candle directly.
I too heard the lucky cigarette thing in high school in northern California.
The lucky cigarette thing is a worldwide practice. Some of my friends in Sweden do it (I guess i probably did it sometimes when I smoked for a while as well). I also seem to recall that you were meant to make a wish with the last cigarette and it would come true if you smoked the whole cigarette without ashing at all. I just thought it was fun to try to smoke the cigarette without ashing. I think that maybe some of my friends said the lucky cigarette thing only worked with Lucky Strike packs. Mostly it was probably just to avoid having to give people a cigarette when you were almost out.
My only semi-weird habits are my driving habits. There are certain ways to drive to different places that are the ‘right’ way even though it makes no difference or could be longer. Usually, it means that I don’t drive the same way to a place as I drive to get back home. No fun in driving the same way back and forth if there are other options available. (sorry if this thread was meant for just weird smoking habits)
Now that I think about it a bit more, a lot of my friends have strange smoking ‘rules’ when it comes to pot. Which direction to pass the joint, whose turn it is to roll, etc… I’ve never bothered to learn any of these because I think they are really stupid. I just try to learn each time by imitation I guess just so that I don’t upset anyone. I’ve never understood why they set up all these rules when it’s meant to relax you and be a chilled out activity (ok, so i do know why - so that they don’t get ‘cheated’ out of their fair share or something, but still…). [standard disaclaimer regarding use of drugs applies: It may be illegal where you are, I’m not advocating it’s use, etc… just commenting on strange practices of people]
In high school and college, the “lucky” was the cig which, if you recited the alphabet over your pack, corresponded with the first letter of the first name of the guy you were hot for. If you succeeded in smoking that one last wihout anyone pinching it, you’d “get” your man, or, if you already had a boyfriend and used his name, you’d assure yourself a successful relationship.
Really, if we had put half so much time and energy into our studying… :rolleyes:
And then we have the infamous “it’s bad luck to light three cigs from one match” superstition, which supposedly came about because if you kept a match alight for that long in the trenches of WWII, it made it easy for the enemy to locate and shoot you.
When I was a little younger (yes, I’m 17 and we’re talking a few years ago… :rolleyes: ) this cigarette was called our ‘lucky’ also.
But there was a specific way it was chosen. In Australia, (no idea about the rest of the world) when you open a packet, you lift up the little flaps under the top to reveal a very little single digit number.
For example:
Number 3 under the left flap = count three from the back left and the third cigarette is the lucky
OR
Number 5 under the right flap = count 5 from the front right and the fifth is your lucky.
Now about that studying… :rolleyes:
Three on a match is bad mojo. I didn’t know it was a WWII thing tho. If you have three guys, you light two, throw out the match, then light another new match.
Another few I’ve always heard…
If your palm itches you’re going to come into some money
If your nose itches you’re going to get company
Don’t step on the foul lines in baseball
Throwing spilt salt over your shoulder
Step on a crack, break your mother’s back
Wearing green on St. Patrick’s Day (or the snakes will get you…)
Given an accurized Mauser Gewehr98, iron sights, match ammunition, zeroed, a good rest, and a 200 meter range, I’d easily get that third pom as soon as he struck a fresh match. I might even get the secondy one if they were making noise. Get yer freakin head down under cover before lighting a smoke. Pull your helmet off and light up inside the helmet. Pull your poncho/smock over your head. All of these things work unless the other guy has an AN/PVS-4 mounted on his M16, in which case, you’re pretty much forked anyway.
And it was the trenches of WW I. Note the Gewehr98 instead of a Karbiner98 Kurz.
I can’t provide a cite, but I’m sure I have read a pretty good item saying that the “three lights from one match” thing has nothing at all to do with wartime trenches.
There is a strange one that I have only once heard about which is that if you drop a glove, you should not pick it up, but ask someone else to pick it up for you. No idea what that one is about.
Another one - again, it was new to me, but a guy at work said it once, that if you leave your house, setting off on a journey, and then realise that you have forgotten something, you should not return to deal with the problem. Worrisome, considering that the kind of thing I am likely to do is panic lest I have left the fire or cooker switched on.
My MIL told me in all seriousness, that if my kids catch the measles, I’m to put a bamboo rice basket on their heads because that will cure them…
Pause for a wholehearted WTF???
How does she know this works? Well when my husband got the measles all them years ago, HER MIL did this to him, and he hardly suffered at all.
That seems ridiculous… and yet it doesn’t. Maybe there’s something in the bamboo. Or the rice residue. There’s a point to this…
I’ve had ear infections since I was 9. Once my Dad was with me at the Dr.'s office. He said that when he was a child, and they had ear infections, his mom would put urine in their ears. Dr. said that that actually was a pretty good idea. The acidic urine would combat the alkaline infection. What the Dr. said was “old wive’s tales” may seem ridiculous, but they are usually based in long-held common knowledge.
I’m a recovered high-school theatre geek, so no mentioning the Scottish play by name on stage, no whistling in the dressing room, no hats on the bed, and I say “break a leg” rather than “good luck” to performers. From my superstitious Italian mother I learned that putting shoes on a table is bad luck and that a loose bird in the house is an omen of death.
My husband has tried to break me of throwing salt over my left shoulder when I spill it (although he doesn’t know I still do it, I am just careful not to let him see me do it.)
I have a bit of OCD, so there are plenty of weird things I ritualize in one way or another. Most of them are pretty minor and easy to miss - it’s very unlikely that someone will notice exactly how I put my shoes and socks on, for instance - but if I DON’T do them “right” I notice and have to start over.
When I play solitaire on the computer, I must have my aces lined up, from left to right, in this order: hearts, spades, diamonds, clubs. If I play a version of the game that doesn’t allow me to put my ace of hearts in that left hand slot (ie: whatever ace you get first goes into that first slot by default), I have to start the game over until I get the ace of hearts visible for my first play. I hate to get the rest of them messed up, too, but I’m more willing to put up with it if I have the ace of hearts in the left slot.
When finishing, the King of Hearts must be played last. Always.
I don’t know when or how or why this habit got started, but I get really irked over it if it’s not lined up “properly”. I feel illogically pleased when it lines up right, especially without my having to arrange them myself.
It’s weird, I know. However, I know of at least one person weirder: my ex’s mother. She honestly believed that if you got hurt, be it a minor scratch or a mortal wound, if you had a dog lick it, it would heal. Why? Because “dogs have magic tongues.” Her words.
Let that one sink in:
Magic. Tongues.
All these years, our doctors have worked so hard. And the answer has been in front of us all along. The dogs have magic tongues.
You know, I did the upside down cigarette thing for awhile too but I never could figure out why. I bet it started when some smartass figured that he’d be able to discern his pack from anyone elses if they got mixed up. Only he was really cool so everyone copied him so now he doesn’t know which ones are his anymore. Yeah, that’s it.
For us, the third to light off the same match was either going to get pregnant or knock someone up. Forget that I wasn’t having sex back then.
Perhaps something to do with dueling i.e. “throwing down the gauntlet”. Just a WAG but perhaps having someone else pick it up gets you out of having to fight to the death…with yourself, or something (give me a break it’s early!!).
By the way, I didn’t intend for this to be exclusively about smoking habits but any strange habits/superstitions you have seen. I just provided that one as an example of something that I thought was strange, but actually turns out to be pretty common.
I didn’t know it was a WWII thing tho. If you have three guys, you light two, throw out the match, then light another new match.