Buying Chew: Rick Rangel always chipped in.
I've been a tobacco chewer for the better part of my life, but it's gone in stages. Not just in stages of starting and stopping, but in stages of brand and/or type. I started chewing while on mess duty in Hawaii. That was the same time I learned to juggle, with frozen oranges, so I must have had a lot of time on my hands. My brand at the time was Hawken, and it stayed that way for about 15 years until I switched to Oliver Twist. Some people don't think Oliver Twist is a chew at all, because you don't spit it, and it doesn't get lost in your teeth. Somebody got smart and made a rolled pellet.
Rick Rangel has long since left the guard. That's the tactful, diplomatic version of the story. What actually happened was, his wife started working as a waitress at a bar, and left him for another man. It drove Rick to the point of stabbing himself multiple times so he could come to work and sport the wounds for attention. I'm not sure he got the kind of attention he wanted. He wasn't allowed to work on aircraft anymore, and was sentenced to painting curbs yellow until the guard found a way to get rid of him. Its really too bad, because I liked Rick, and he was a good mechanic. I blame the woman.
Rick was a tobacco chewer also, but to my knowledge, he never bought his own. He just chipped in when Joe Huskey bought a can. I want to say it was Skoal, so I will for the sake of the story. Joe always had a can somewhere, and Rick knew it. Rick never had a chew, so he would 'buy' some from Joe. Dipping a quarter of the can into his mouth 'cost' Rick a quarter, so he felt it was a pretty good deal. Many a time, Joe would return to discover that most of the can had been pilfered. He would then find a 'thank you' note (usually from Joe's sticky note pad) from Rick with a quarter lying close by. It would infuriate Joe to the point of red face profanities.
That gave Shaun Busskohl and I an idea. Shaun was prior service army, and currently married with a young child. Both he and his wife were students. His state of welfare often required us to 'carry' him at the clubs if we wanted him around. He was usually worth it.
Shaun and I were sitting in the battery shop, Joe's home away from home, when Joe returned from the PX with a brand new can of Skoal. You could almost see the wheels spinning in Shaun's gourd and the smoke rolling out of his ears as Joe left the room and the idea worked itself out of his mouth.
I found a zip-lock bag in a drawer while Shaun broke the seal on the new Skoal can. He then dumped out the entire contents of the can into the zip-lock, I closed it, and threw it into the top desk drawer of Joe's desk. Shaun wrote the 'thank you' with Rick's forged signature and left the quarter. It was all we could do to sit and wait. The laughter was splitting my guts already, and holding it in anticipation was killing me.
Finally, Joe walked in. Shaun went white in the face, and I grew jealous because I couldn't 'straight face' it so good. After what seemed several minutes, Joe must have caught it out of the corner of his eye, because he did a double take, and picked up the note. He dropped the note, and as it floated down to the desk, he picked up the can and opened it only to discover that it was all but empty. There wasn't even enough crumbs to scrape together one dip.
I swear to God he started quivering. He turned around and in one swift motion he whipped that can so hard it made about 6 rails around the room before it came to a rest, and he was out the door before we knew it. I felt sorry for Rick, but we hid from Joe for the rest of the weekend. Rick was never the same after that. I don't think they had any impact, but I'll never know for sure if our actions contributed to Rick's fanatical ways or not. What can I say? You can't polish a turd.
"When a true genius appears in the world, you may know him by this sign, that the dunces are all in confederacy against him." Jonathan Swift