Laundry money almost got me addicted to chaw!!!

Curse this cashless society of ours, it almost made an addict out of me. Though you run into the occasional wise-ass hobo who says he won't mind following you to an ATM, most of the time telling our town's fine collection of pan-handlers that you're not carrying any cash is enough to get them off your scent. However, for all the grocery store self checkout lanes, and even movie self-ticketing machines – they don't even ask for proof that you're a senior citizen! - sometimes hard currency is still necessary, like in my apartment building's laundry room.

Really, is a debit friendly washer/dryer still too much for in a country of electric cars and visits to the moon every 193 years, given that fact that I can buy a single candy bar from a vending machine with my debby at my current place of employ? Despite my complaining, the laundering machines won't run for anything less than cold, hard quarters, and so I head to Safeway to get a couple rolls of them.

My own 11 years in the grocery game taught me that people who want to use the customer service desk as a glorified ATM effectively drain the dignity out of what can be an otherwise very honest cigarette sale, so I don't want to do that. Conveniently, the wife has recently expressed an interest in ice cream, and as science has proven to us that only Communists like our current president don't like ice cream, the question of what to purchase can be answered in the form of a pint of Ben and Jerry's Peanut Butter Cup. Though it has an extraordinary amount of fat in it, I counter this by mentally reassuring myself that I will eat it in moderation, with an air of compassionate conservatism evident throughout the entire consumption process.

Buying things at Safeway is always a pain in the you-know-what ( “ass,” in case you didn't know) because they never have enough people working checkout and the money they might have spent on self check-out lanes seems to have been invested in the yellow t-shirts that all of the employees are wearing. I'd have gone to Beavers Market just up the street from my home, but there's a sign discouraging debit cards for purchases under $5, and the idea of getting cash back or rolls of quarters from Beavers seems like asking a consumptive orphan for a quick run through of the highlights from Mozart's “The Magic Flute.”

Having avoided the express lane because the line was longer than a standard checkout line (I've always prided myself on my observational skills, plus those yellow t-shirts make employees very easy to spot!) I now have my pint of ice cream and $20 in quarter money, so I head to the service desk to exchange my handsome portrait of Andrew Jackson for 80 smaller portraits of that stoic deist of a Freemason, George Washington. Though the service counter is empty when I arrive, a nice lady quickly arrives and tells me she'll have to head to the back to get me my two rolls of quarters. I thank her as she walks away and now, lacking any immediate stimulus, quickly start to zone out.

Inevitably my gaze ends up on the rainbow colored wall of tobacco products that the waist high counter I stand in front of is guarding. Did you know Marlboro now makes something called Snus? Isn't that the square-root of the name of the physical act of love in the Futurama episode with the nympho-Amazons? Dunno.... Anyway, my brain has been thoroughly equipped with years of jaded, ad dismissing rhetoric, and so I casually ignore the various lengths and flavors of cigarette that are now available in these United States – yeah, Camel No. 9 Menthe 100's! - but for some inexplicable reason my eyes take a hold of the chewing tobacco racks and won't let go.

Now I know that chewing is bad, mmmkay? I've discovered enough beer-cans full of tobacco spit while helping party hosts empty half-full beers into the kitchen sink the morning after a rager to know that a rabid chaw addiction is neither self contained nor pretty. Also, I've seen “The Sandlot” quite a few times. And yet I think, “Ask for a can of the mint chew, and take a dip and be a man!” I also get the urge to smoke a cigar every couple months or so, too.

The nice lady who is getting me some quarters takes what seems to be an overly long time getting them, and I wonder if the whole thing is a set-up by big tobacco to get me addicted. I mean, music is tough to keep up on in you want to entertain some idea of relevance, but a big 'ol mouth full of tobacco has a classic cool that transcends generations. Long after The Black Eyed Peas are seen as our generation's Bee Gees, spitting browned saliva into empty 20 oz. plastic pop- bottles will contain that rare aura of social dynamism that I could begin to take part in with just a simple request.

I'm certainly old enough, and I've got cash in hand... “Excuse me miss, did I say two rolls of quarters? I'm sorry, I meant one roll of quarters and one can of mint Skoal!” It'd be so easy. I continue to picture myself with a protruding lower lip until the woman actually comes back with the quarters, and as I slide the frozen cylinder of rich, peanut-buttery cream out of the way I'm reminded of my wife and her abhorrence to such things as beards streaked with chaw-spit. And then I have a moment of introspection and realize that I would also be doing myself a grave disservice by befouling my well cared for face's friend – as beards are often called – by picking up this nasty vice. And so I instead return home with just my ice-cream and my quarters.
In the end I escaped the debilitating throes of addiction, but I had been close to buying in to the simple joy of machismo cool. Too close. And so I say: Damn you coin-op laundry machines, and damn you debit cards. Damn you both to hell.