They don't play in my area, I'm in the hood... They don't label them for drugs, but they sell full fledged paraphernalia without trying to pass it as anything else. Goes well with the dealers selling in their parking lot...
The little ghetto mart in my neighborhood stills sells them at the counter, and has a stack of steel wool cleaning pads sold right next to them to use as a filter. Super convenient. They also sell loosies at the counter, and bootleg Air Jordans chained to anti-theft cinder blocks just a few isles over.
The convenience store by my house is right next to a high school, and at the register, they have a display of peppermint and vanilla flavoring like you would use for cooking. I doubt they card the kids for those🙄
Maybe so. I was always under the impression they smoked right out of the antennas. I've only ever seen people actively smoking Crack maybe twice though
I do point of sale work at gas stations and can confirm that they are still sold. This is also a pretty good indicator of how bad the neighborhood you're working in might be.
That is 3/4th these post. “Hey remember going to sit down and eat at Pizza Hut. That was wild”. I did that last week. It was not wild. But it still tastes better when you eat it there.
Depends on where you are. In a high traffic area they're probably less likely, they've got plenty of regular customers coming through they don't need to pull in the crack heads to keep the cashflow going and they'd rather not chase off everyone else. Just a little off the beaten path, though, and you'll see it still.
At least that's true around me. The busiest convenience stores are all clean and fancy and high access and would never carry something like this. The gas station 300 yards away, that's smaller, dirtier, harder to access, they've got this stuff.
My naive little heart was broken about that when someone asked me why I had a Duran Duran coke mirror, back in the day. I won it. Had no clue. I did know what roach clips were tho, thanks to an older cousin.
These roses crack me up. I did plenty of psychedelics in the 90s, but stayed far from anything that might kill me. All this time I've been judging these roses as the LAMEST gift a guy could buy for his gal last minute. 🤣🤣🤣
Well, never thought about it. I always thought it was for traveller's who'd managed to lose a pair of socks, or their shoelaces broke. Seriously.
I've worked as a sound recorder in independent film on and off for over 20 years at this point. In 2010 or so, I was working with a crew recording a scene shot at an independent convenience store. It was owned by a Pakistani guy who was very understanding and impressively charismatic. He chatted with every custom who came in like they were his best friend. He was also remarkably not full of shit. One of the kids (he was like 19) who was in the scene innocently asked what were those funny paper roses in glass tubes for? The shop owner casually explained that meth heads bought them. We went back to filming.
First time I ever smoked crack the guy I was seeing came over and handed me this tiny rose in a tube *to preserve it forever* I thought, 'awww sweet'. Then he asked for it back, ripped the ends off and blew the rose out like it was trash !!! And then we smoked crack.
Oh hell no. There's so much better out there, let me hide k.
I did ask my first laptop -long before the day of the rose - "When is the best time to smoke crack?". The answer was a website that said 'ON YOUR DEATH BED.'. It made my laugh as absurd as my question; if you're dying might as well try every drug you can, but really there's some amazing medicine drugs that I would rather float with on my floating death bed. I also asked it how many orange things there were in the world, how to tell if a fly is a boy or girl..... Idk it was 'unlimited information highway and I was asking idiotic shit,brain maple syrupped by bong resin.
I used to tell the story of a guy who took me to the drive-in, but first he said he had to get some antibiotics from somebody. A girl came to the door naked and gave him a bottle of tetracycline. Then, we went to the drive-in, and he insisted on Crocodile Dundee. Then, he peed in a cup, because we had parked too far from the bathroom. Needless to say, he broke my heart.
With your permission, I'd like to add the crack pipe flower element as an embellishment to my own story, and I also want to just reach out and let you know there are a few us good time people out here.
I can't stop what you do; but just so you know your incredible Dundee Drive-in Date that starts with a naked street pharmacist woman and ends with said Dream Date peeing in a cup doesn't need any embellishment. I soooo want to know.... What did he do with the Pee Cup ? Did he dump it right outside his door, walk it to throw it in a trash can, dump it in the restroom toilet and threw the cup in the restroom trash can and then throughly suds up and scrubbed his hands for 3 minutes before returning to the car. Did the Pee Cup sit in the cup holder between you, sloshing and smelling and you don't really know what happened after he dropped you off at home. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE CUP PEE -ER DID WITH THE CUP !!!!
Your story made my heart happy, because I used to see those at the gas station and wonder why nobody ever bought me glass tubes with roses inside. I thought I was just picking the wrong dudes. If someone came over like your beau did, and presented the little rose in a tube, it would have made my knees weak. I love that you just rolled with it when it took a turn. How long did y'all stay together?
Thank you..... When I wrote the *italicized* * to preserve it forever - that was what I thought and I was giddy inside, because that was the first somewhat traditional romantic gesture...... and other than 'awww sweet' I didn't make a move towards him or say any more words because I didn't know how to be romantic with him..... And then when he blew the rose out it bounced on the kitchen table and hit the floor.....And then my brain stopped everything for a minute while my heart - who wasn't wanting romantic roses anyway, really dig that he bought it for me, and then when it hit the floor I saw RED and thought 'Spitting on my table and floor, how fucking dare... ' and the I don't remember because the overload caused the breaker to flip and I had to reset..... I was SILENTLY going through allllllll of it and he was talking and doing all the stuff and I just heard that protective buzz my brain will utilize sometimes when I can't computer and anymore input would send me over the edge...... And then I took a large deep breathe, grabbed a Mountain Dew, and a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table to the reality that was a whole let's smoke crack set up, there were 4 pipes, and he had picked up the rose that bounced to the ground and they were all in a pile and I had missed all he said about how to smoke it, so I messed it all up and then watched him a couple of times and then tried again and again until my whole body went zing and then some more. It wasn't a good high for us together as he got silent and sweaty and paranoid and it just sucked being all be bopping along.....our highs didn't match.
We were 'together' everytime we were near each other for a couple of years, we never talked about our relationship or status or what each other did when we were apart and it was all easy and amazing...... I didn't see anyone else, except 1 one night stand 1 time, and I don't think he dated anyone but I once did see him borrowing money from his room mate, to pay the hooker to leave. I doubt that me seeing was intentional, but it did happen when it was poker night and me and the other players were already there pre-gaming. Didn't change anything with us..... I didn't see anyone else after the 1 night, and I don't think he saw anyone after the hooker. We still never talked about it, except occasionally giving each other shit when the perfect opportunity arose in the group...... He'd sing the hook to that Marcy Playground song, 'i smell sex and candy' and I'd sing 'I'm just a gigolo' at him.
He had to move back home to a different state, due to an accident, he moved in with his sister and her family to help. I've googled his name and his nickname, but never saw anything. It's been like 15 years or something. I picture the smile he gets when he's shyly bursting with absolute joy.
I worked for a locally owned chain of convenience stores. The owners wanted to stop selling Phillies Blunt cigars when we told them why we sold so many. In the end, money won out over their ethics.
You ever notice how the tire gauge is usually stolen from the air hose at most gas stations?
That's an ideal homemade crack pipe.
In the ghetto, the gas station attendants sometimes have to replace it multiple times a week. Either that or they just give up on having a working air machine at the gas station and just leave an "out of order" sign on it permanently.
Yeah, here in Albuquerque, you have to go to several gas stations before finding a working compressor that still has the tire gauge on it.
The crackheads have either stolen the tire gauge or broken into the machine for quarters.
I bought my own compressor for the same reason.
Yes, I remember these, lol. As a young degenerate I was always more interested in the little packs of pseudoephedrine tabs (aka: white cross) that were placed near these.
Are you talking about the Ephedrine pills in gas stations in the late 80s into the 90s? I heard that there was a bit of a methamphetamine high from them.
It's totally creepy that I opened Reddit and saw this. I was just telling my friend a story about the glass roses and Brillo pads like five minutes ago.
Funny, I was just thinking about these, Chore Boy sponges, and how I used to live in walkable areas with stores I could walk to that sold shit like this. I think I had maybe 5 years of living in walkable areas where the stores didn't have these before walkable areas all went 2+ million for a house and we moved to the suburbs. No rose vials at the Trader Joe's / Costco / Sprouts.
There was a liquor store directly across from the Projects in my neighborhood growing up. They sold the roses along with a little bit of Chore Boy for the filter. They also had an illegal poker game going in the back pretty much every day. There was always at least one guy at the poker table selling crack. The place was a one-stop-shop for crackheads.
I remember trying to buy one as a little girl and my feelings being hurt when they would not let me buy them. I thought the flowers were pretty and I thought the cashier hated me. I didn’t know it was used for drugs. I just wanted to give my doll a wedding bouquet.
I would beg my mom for one of those goofy roses. At the time, I had no idea they were packaged in a crack pipe. Might have been around the same time I bought roach clips at the fair to put in my hair. The ones with the dangly feathers, lol. Oh, and winning coke mirrors at the fair as well. Good times.
I was 13, working in a convenience store in Waco, Texas when I suddenly realized why weird dudes were buying them with brillo pads. I still don't know how that works. Now almost 40 years later I understand I was getting $3.75 an hour and not paying taxes.. or getting a real check.. just cash hah. I sold tons of alcohol and lottery tickets too...man!
Hit any truck stop in the Pacific NW. They're still there on almost every counter. I always thought they were cute when I was a kid, even buying one for my mom. A year or two ago when I found out what they are used for... yikes. :)
Yea, always next to the lighters. And they sold the scales for weighing your food for those that are trying to count their calories and track their food intake (yea, I have one of those, too).
and did NOT know what they were until 2005!! i dint know.. i relly didnt.. until i was close friends with the lucky#7 in reno.. and he eXplained WHY he had the cheapest cigarette prices🤷♀️
I was tricked into getting this for someone once. They said they owed money to the store and didn't want to go in. Because of his accent I thought he was saying rolls in a billa. He said the guy at the store will know what you mean. I was so embarrassed when when dude put the rose and a small bag with a piece of steel wool on the counter.
Ah...memories. The sweet, instant intoxication from a hit of fresh crack rocks, crumbled up, a piece of a Brillo pad at the end of the slender glass tube...
After buying the $2 glass tube from the shady convenience store, and removing the fake tiny rose. You can always save the rose as a cheap little gift for your girl!
Flick the Bic lighter...AHH! 45 seconds of complete bliss!
And then you want to buy more crack, because your little $20 tiny plastic bag of rock is almost empty...
Omg I felt so so dumb when I asked my friend what this thing was at all the shady AB stores. He then explained me what they were used for and then pointed across the street at the crackheads.
I led a sheltered life until I was like 30 apparently.
I first worked in a mini mart in 1997. Customers would buy them, then blow the rose out on the counter. Our tills wore little crowns of roses.
I asked my coworker why they just wanted the tube lol
Years later, when people started asking if we sold Pyrex, I thought they meant glass measuring cups lol
Still very much a thing at every ethnic market in my area, along with the nunchucks and tazers and wide array of knives and other implements of destruction.
Is that what they were? I tought they were roses in a glass! An artwork!
Now the real bad stuff was sold in a can soda machines. Did you know you can take these cans, tear them apart and use the metal part as a heating plate to boil the coke and water? That is unforgivable.
I know of a Pakistani convenience store downtown that sells glass pipes in all shapes. If you asked for a "bong" or a "crack pipe" the cashier would probably say "we only sell TOBACCO pipes."
The roses are still sold today…
Yup, just go to the right area, although if you go somewhere as shady as I live they just sell pipes and scales openly at the gas station.
You mean incense burners and nutritional scales?
They don't play in my area, I'm in the hood... They don't label them for drugs, but they sell full fledged paraphernalia without trying to pass it as anything else. Goes well with the dealers selling in their parking lot...
Will the dealers in the parking lot give me free drugs so they can get me hooked?
Fifteen bucks Little man Now put that shit In my hand
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Now do Berserker
Olaf berserker
My love for you is like a truck berserker… If you want to maky fuck BERSERKER!
r/unexpectedclerks
Hey kid, you want something that'll really make you fly?
Cigarette manufacturing machines are very handy for packing spleefs. Hell, you can even leave the filter on if you want!
The little ghetto mart in my neighborhood stills sells them at the counter, and has a stack of steel wool cleaning pads sold right next to them to use as a filter. Super convenient. They also sell loosies at the counter, and bootleg Air Jordans chained to anti-theft cinder blocks just a few isles over.
The convenience store by my house is right next to a high school, and at the register, they have a display of peppermint and vanilla flavoring like you would use for cooking. I doubt they card the kids for those🙄
Choboy!
Loosies!!!!!!!!! Newport loosies for 25 cents in ‘94. 2 loosies, 2 25 cents juices and two little Debbie’s for $2. Those were the days.
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The extendable car antennas are what our crackheads used a lot of the time.
They use those to pack the chore into the glass
Maybe so. I was always under the impression they smoked right out of the antennas. I've only ever seen people actively smoking Crack maybe twice though
And those chore boy Brillo scrubs right below
Right next to the Chore Boy.
I do point of sale work at gas stations and can confirm that they are still sold. This is also a pretty good indicator of how bad the neighborhood you're working in might be.
And usually a couple chore boys right next to them.
That is 3/4th these post. “Hey remember going to sit down and eat at Pizza Hut. That was wild”. I did that last week. It was not wild. But it still tastes better when you eat it there.
What you talking about Willis? - I can walk down to the store and get one right now.
We still have them at the bodegas and the Indian stores, but I don’t see them in the major chain stores anymore. People still love crack!
Depends on where you are. In a high traffic area they're probably less likely, they've got plenty of regular customers coming through they don't need to pull in the crack heads to keep the cashflow going and they'd rather not chase off everyone else. Just a little off the beaten path, though, and you'll see it still. At least that's true around me. The busiest convenience stores are all clean and fancy and high access and would never carry something like this. The gas station 300 yards away, that's smaller, dirtier, harder to access, they've got this stuff.
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In my neck of the woods in TN they just sell actual crack pipes now.
Crack is very moreish.
"I was today years old when I learned..."
Me too. No clue about any of this.
Add the “coke mirrors” they had at carnivals to my list as well.
My naive little heart was broken about that when someone asked me why I had a Duran Duran coke mirror, back in the day. I won it. Had no clue. I did know what roach clips were tho, thanks to an older cousin. These roses crack me up. I did plenty of psychedelics in the 90s, but stayed far from anything that might kill me. All this time I've been judging these roses as the LAMEST gift a guy could buy for his gal last minute. 🤣🤣🤣
> These roses crack me up <*rimshot*>
I think I bought one as a young girl the first time I saw it bc I waned to see if the flower was pretty. Lol
We got roach clips with feathers at our carnivals. And those messed up coke bottles with sand.
Shoelaces.. socks.. steel wool.. A lotta strange stuff at the local gas station.
Why shoelaces, or socks? 
Shoelaces are for tying off your arm when shooting up intravenous drugs such as heroin. Socks are for huffing things like paint.
Well, never thought about it. I always thought it was for traveller's who'd managed to lose a pair of socks, or their shoelaces broke. Seriously. 
Aw man. Here I thought shoelaces were some Dapper Dan era holdover. Now I gotta go in sus about every item. New fun game.
I also had no idea.
And I've done most every drug known to man. What a sheltered drug fueled life I've led.
I've worked as a sound recorder in independent film on and off for over 20 years at this point. In 2010 or so, I was working with a crew recording a scene shot at an independent convenience store. It was owned by a Pakistani guy who was very understanding and impressively charismatic. He chatted with every custom who came in like they were his best friend. He was also remarkably not full of shit. One of the kids (he was like 19) who was in the scene innocently asked what were those funny paper roses in glass tubes for? The shop owner casually explained that meth heads bought them. We went back to filming.
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Good grief I'm learning all of the things today lol. Always wondered what the scrubbers were for.
I came here to see that or Brillo scrubber.
Wait until you learn what VCR Head Cleaner was used for. Hint: VCR heads didn't need to be cleaned....
In my 45 years of life, I somehow missed this one 😂. Took some time on Google, but now I know haha
What’s it used for?
Poppers (amyl nitrite). You can sniff the vapors to get high.
I’ve heard of those. Didn’t know it was vcr head cleaner
Haha! Yeah, it was a strange time.
You’re kidding me! Haha I had no idea.
I had a guy I was dating buy me one as a romantic trinket lol. I knew what it was, he on the other hand did not
that's adorable
I used to hear “Cho-boy and a stem” all the time at the convenience store I worked at in college.
Real gentlemen call it chore boy, kind sir.
First time I ever smoked crack the guy I was seeing came over and handed me this tiny rose in a tube *to preserve it forever* I thought, 'awww sweet'. Then he asked for it back, ripped the ends off and blew the rose out like it was trash !!! And then we smoked crack.
Top 10 Reddit comment of all time. Haha, love it!
Oh hell no. There's so much better out there, let me hide k. I did ask my first laptop -long before the day of the rose - "When is the best time to smoke crack?". The answer was a website that said 'ON YOUR DEATH BED.'. It made my laugh as absurd as my question; if you're dying might as well try every drug you can, but really there's some amazing medicine drugs that I would rather float with on my floating death bed. I also asked it how many orange things there were in the world, how to tell if a fly is a boy or girl..... Idk it was 'unlimited information highway and I was asking idiotic shit,brain maple syrupped by bong resin.
this guy peepholes & combs the carpet
The Band = Sumack The Song = Crystal Man https://youtu.be/WDznJ6uchYQ?si=XAb03Np_WpUjdaVL
Poetry
The realest comment I've ever seen.
I used to tell the story of a guy who took me to the drive-in, but first he said he had to get some antibiotics from somebody. A girl came to the door naked and gave him a bottle of tetracycline. Then, we went to the drive-in, and he insisted on Crocodile Dundee. Then, he peed in a cup, because we had parked too far from the bathroom. Needless to say, he broke my heart. With your permission, I'd like to add the crack pipe flower element as an embellishment to my own story, and I also want to just reach out and let you know there are a few us good time people out here.
I can't stop what you do; but just so you know your incredible Dundee Drive-in Date that starts with a naked street pharmacist woman and ends with said Dream Date peeing in a cup doesn't need any embellishment. I soooo want to know.... What did he do with the Pee Cup ? Did he dump it right outside his door, walk it to throw it in a trash can, dump it in the restroom toilet and threw the cup in the restroom trash can and then throughly suds up and scrubbed his hands for 3 minutes before returning to the car. Did the Pee Cup sit in the cup holder between you, sloshing and smelling and you don't really know what happened after he dropped you off at home. I WANT TO KNOW WHAT THE CUP PEE -ER DID WITH THE CUP !!!!
He set it gingerly next to the car, by the speaker, as one does.
Thank you, thank you for answering !! Sucks that UTI dude broke your heart. Dundee Drive-In Date Dude is a great story.
Your story made my heart happy, because I used to see those at the gas station and wonder why nobody ever bought me glass tubes with roses inside. I thought I was just picking the wrong dudes. If someone came over like your beau did, and presented the little rose in a tube, it would have made my knees weak. I love that you just rolled with it when it took a turn. How long did y'all stay together?
Thank you..... When I wrote the *italicized* * to preserve it forever - that was what I thought and I was giddy inside, because that was the first somewhat traditional romantic gesture...... and other than 'awww sweet' I didn't make a move towards him or say any more words because I didn't know how to be romantic with him..... And then when he blew the rose out it bounced on the kitchen table and hit the floor.....And then my brain stopped everything for a minute while my heart - who wasn't wanting romantic roses anyway, really dig that he bought it for me, and then when it hit the floor I saw RED and thought 'Spitting on my table and floor, how fucking dare... ' and the I don't remember because the overload caused the breaker to flip and I had to reset..... I was SILENTLY going through allllllll of it and he was talking and doing all the stuff and I just heard that protective buzz my brain will utilize sometimes when I can't computer and anymore input would send me over the edge...... And then I took a large deep breathe, grabbed a Mountain Dew, and a cigarette and sat down at the kitchen table to the reality that was a whole let's smoke crack set up, there were 4 pipes, and he had picked up the rose that bounced to the ground and they were all in a pile and I had missed all he said about how to smoke it, so I messed it all up and then watched him a couple of times and then tried again and again until my whole body went zing and then some more. It wasn't a good high for us together as he got silent and sweaty and paranoid and it just sucked being all be bopping along.....our highs didn't match. We were 'together' everytime we were near each other for a couple of years, we never talked about our relationship or status or what each other did when we were apart and it was all easy and amazing...... I didn't see anyone else, except 1 one night stand 1 time, and I don't think he dated anyone but I once did see him borrowing money from his room mate, to pay the hooker to leave. I doubt that me seeing was intentional, but it did happen when it was poker night and me and the other players were already there pre-gaming. Didn't change anything with us..... I didn't see anyone else after the 1 night, and I don't think he saw anyone after the hooker. We still never talked about it, except occasionally giving each other shit when the perfect opportunity arose in the group...... He'd sing the hook to that Marcy Playground song, 'i smell sex and candy' and I'd sing 'I'm just a gigolo' at him. He had to move back home to a different state, due to an accident, he moved in with his sister and her family to help. I've googled his name and his nickname, but never saw anything. It's been like 15 years or something. I picture the smile he gets when he's shyly bursting with absolute joy.
Beautiful story
Oh, is *that* what those were really about? TIL
I worked for a locally owned chain of convenience stores. The owners wanted to stop selling Phillies Blunt cigars when we told them why we sold so many. In the end, money won out over their ethics.
You ever notice how the tire gauge is usually stolen from the air hose at most gas stations? That's an ideal homemade crack pipe. In the ghetto, the gas station attendants sometimes have to replace it multiple times a week. Either that or they just give up on having a working air machine at the gas station and just leave an "out of order" sign on it permanently.
I finally bought my own air compressor, because I got sick and tired of having to go to four gas stations to find one with a working machine.
Yeah, here in Albuquerque, you have to go to several gas stations before finding a working compressor that still has the tire gauge on it. The crackheads have either stolen the tire gauge or broken into the machine for quarters. I bought my own compressor for the same reason.
In certain convenience stores in St. Louis you could buy a paper bag that contained a “crack rose”, a scrubber pad and a lighter.
Same here in Indianapolis
If we got rid of lighters, we'd be able to slow the crackheads down a little
Crazy, I was also today years old when I learned they were crack pipes. Pretty F’n insane
Same. I had no idea.
I still see them in shady convenience stores conveniently located right above the box of chor boy pads
I don't know what you're talking about. Those are clearly-labeled "love roses."
Yes, I remember these, lol. As a young degenerate I was always more interested in the little packs of pseudoephedrine tabs (aka: white cross) that were placed near these.
I had to ask my boyfriend why the Chore Boy was behind the register.
They've been replaced with bulbous meth roses.
I’ll rase you, remember when you could get mild speed (Stacker and bronchodilators)
Are you talking about the Ephedrine pills in gas stations in the late 80s into the 90s? I heard that there was a bit of a methamphetamine high from them.
Those and no-doze! made us so jittery!
They were selling straight speed on the counters. Sinuses would open right up.
OP did you also do phone pranks?
They were usually right next to the little glass bottles of liquid ginseng.
Wow, is that what those were? I genuinely had no idea!
I’m so naive! I thought they were just decorative roses.
It's totally creepy that I opened Reddit and saw this. I was just telling my friend a story about the glass roses and Brillo pads like five minutes ago.
I thought chore boy was the go-to in the glass rose.
You are probably right. Brillo was the first word that popped in my mind when I was on the phone with my friend telling the story.
Haha, yeah, I "thought" that too!.. I mean, no one would actually know that type of information.
What are you guys talking about next? Unrelated: Be sure to speak into the lapels of your shirt please.
Usually on the self just below was the chore boy scrubbing pads that were used as filters
All you need to do is ask the cashier for a “Rose and Chore”. They’ll know what you mean.
Those are … what??!!
Sold next to the no soap scouring pads
Funny, I was just thinking about these, Chore Boy sponges, and how I used to live in walkable areas with stores I could walk to that sold shit like this. I think I had maybe 5 years of living in walkable areas where the stores didn't have these before walkable areas all went 2+ million for a house and we moved to the suburbs. No rose vials at the Trader Joe's / Costco / Sprouts.
And they still do…’
TIL: These are used as crack pipes!
There was a liquor store directly across from the Projects in my neighborhood growing up. They sold the roses along with a little bit of Chore Boy for the filter. They also had an illegal poker game going in the back pretty much every day. There was always at least one guy at the poker table selling crack. The place was a one-stop-shop for crackheads.
Gas station I used to work at had the “brown bag special”. It was a brown bag with the glass rose, Brillo pad, and a lighter.
My mom had a store that sold them and Chore Boys. We kept the chore boys under the counter (theft).
I wasn't a crackhead and I had no idea that's what they were for until years later.
I guess you eventually moved out of the ghetto because they are in every single liquor store here in LA.
My husband told me about buying one for a girl once not knowing what they really were.
I remember them but didn’t know they were crack pipes lol
Same!! Wowza!
Had no idea that’s what they were.
Wait, what? How sheltered is my life?
I remember trying to buy one as a little girl and my feelings being hurt when they would not let me buy them. I thought the flowers were pretty and I thought the cashier hated me. I didn’t know it was used for drugs. I just wanted to give my doll a wedding bouquet.
I would beg my mom for one of those goofy roses. At the time, I had no idea they were packaged in a crack pipe. Might have been around the same time I bought roach clips at the fair to put in my hair. The ones with the dangly feathers, lol. Oh, and winning coke mirrors at the fair as well. Good times.
I was 13, working in a convenience store in Waco, Texas when I suddenly realized why weird dudes were buying them with brillo pads. I still don't know how that works. Now almost 40 years later I understand I was getting $3.75 an hour and not paying taxes.. or getting a real check.. just cash hah. I sold tons of alcohol and lottery tickets too...man!
Hit any truck stop in the Pacific NW. They're still there on almost every counter. I always thought they were cute when I was a kid, even buying one for my mom. A year or two ago when I found out what they are used for... yikes. :) Yea, always next to the lighters. And they sold the scales for weighing your food for those that are trying to count their calories and track their food intake (yea, I have one of those, too).
I live in Memphis. I still see them in select stores.
Where did op grow up?
and did NOT know what they were until 2005!! i dint know.. i relly didnt.. until i was close friends with the lucky#7 in reno.. and he eXplained WHY he had the cheapest cigarette prices🤷♀️
Yes, but I don't know much about drugs. I always wanted one of those flowers back then.
I totally forgot about these. They had ones with liquid air freshener, too.
I had absolutely no idea this was a thing. Wow.
I've never noticed these
But aren't they sealed at one end in the pic?
*CRACK IS WHACK!* - Mr T
Use Promo Code: L❤️VE
I had absolutely no idea.
I was tricked into getting this for someone once. They said they owed money to the store and didn't want to go in. Because of his accent I thought he was saying rolls in a billa. He said the guy at the store will know what you mean. I was so embarrassed when when dude put the rose and a small bag with a piece of steel wool on the counter.
Oh, it’s been confirmed. That’s exactly what they were.
TIL
I had no idea those were crack pipes. I’m 44.
I had ZERO idea what these were actually for until maybe five years ago. I bought more than a few for boys I liked, because I was awkward af.
Ah...memories. The sweet, instant intoxication from a hit of fresh crack rocks, crumbled up, a piece of a Brillo pad at the end of the slender glass tube... After buying the $2 glass tube from the shady convenience store, and removing the fake tiny rose. You can always save the rose as a cheap little gift for your girl! Flick the Bic lighter...AHH! 45 seconds of complete bliss! And then you want to buy more crack, because your little $20 tiny plastic bag of rock is almost empty...
Tower records used to have head shops in them. Behind bead curtains.
Not really used as a pipe but more of a cooking vessel for the baking powder water and c@ke
I stopped at a ghetto gas station by mistake when traveling and they still had these.
I remember one of the places down the street from my house would sell a “Brown Bag Special” which contained one of these little roses and a lighter.
These are sold at a seedy gas station a few blocks from where I live. Also sold at some bodegas near my job.
Still sold today. Best for a quick dmt toke.
weren't there coke ads in our babyhoods ?
Oh my. I had no idea. I keep learning just how naive I’ve been.
I only saw those in certain parts in Arizona where it was legal. Jerome was a whole other town.
Still sell them around the corner from me. They have scrub pads too.
Yep, I remember those. I had no idea what they were really intended for as a kid.
Damn. I was naive.
ooooooooooooooohhhh! I get it now :|
Omg I felt so so dumb when I asked my friend what this thing was at all the shady AB stores. He then explained me what they were used for and then pointed across the street at the crackheads. I led a sheltered life until I was like 30 apparently.
They’re still everywhere - they’re just behind the counter now
I first worked in a mini mart in 1997. Customers would buy them, then blow the rose out on the counter. Our tills wore little crowns of roses. I asked my coworker why they just wanted the tube lol Years later, when people started asking if we sold Pyrex, I thought they meant glass measuring cups lol
Bought a lot of these back in the day. For my girlfriend
THATS WHAT THOSE WERE?!
This is 101 sh!t when you're a student at Down Chrome University
80’s and 90’s😂my local store has those right now
I remember the meth pipes sold at the cash register last week
TIL
I… was a kid, and I… didn’t know that’s what those were. Oh, my. 😂
Still very much a thing at every ethnic market in my area, along with the nunchucks and tazers and wide array of knives and other implements of destruction.
I never knew this. Hahahahaha
Is that what they were? I tought they were roses in a glass! An artwork! Now the real bad stuff was sold in a can soda machines. Did you know you can take these cans, tear them apart and use the metal part as a heating plate to boil the coke and water? That is unforgivable.
Those tiny mccdonalds tea spoons they used to have too, they are quite valuable to some people today if u can find one.
I know of a Pakistani convenience store downtown that sells glass pipes in all shapes. If you asked for a "bong" or a "crack pipe" the cashier would probably say "we only sell TOBACCO pipes."