A Dollar For A Cigarette, Or Was It All Just A Scam? 🤔

The Very Observational Newsletter, Vol. 5

The Oregon Coast is a very, very strange and beautiful place. Sure, it has great little restaurants and coffeehouses—but there are also machete-wielding madmen, and a guy trying to buy a cigarette from me for a dollar. And I don’t even smoke.

📍 Observation Point - Dollar For A Cigarette?

The other day we were in downtown Newport, Oregon, just off Highway 101. We were out to eat dinner at a little restaurant called Noodle Cafe. They have lots of different noodles, but strangely, no spaghetti and meatballs.

K.L. Rockwell

was driving as usual. She hates it when anybody but she drives. It was Friday night and the tourists were OUT in full force. Luckily, we found a spot right in front of Noodle Cafe. But, it was a very tight parallel parking spot.

So, there she went, attempting to parallel park. She used to be a good parallel parker until we got a Honda with a back-up camera. She says the camera makes her dizzy. She went back and forth about ten times until she threw up her hands and asked me to park it.

Oh, the humanity of forgetting how to parallel park. I got into the spot on one try because, oddly, the backup camera doesn’t make me dizzy.

I like that thing.

Can I Have A Cigarette For A Dollar?

When I got out of the car, KL was already in the restaurant. A guy came up to me and asked what I thought was, “Do you have a dollar for a cigarette?” I thought he was trying to sell me a cigarette. (People don’t typically sell loose cigarettes around here.)

I only had a twenty and wasn’t going to stand there on the sidewalk trying to break it with this random dude. “No, sorry, I don’t have any cash,” I lied. Not that I was going to buy a cigarette from him, but I appreciated his entrepreneurship.

Highway 101 is a hotspot for, let’s call them: ‘unexpected money requestors’, so we’re used to quick exchanges — requests for cash, and making excuses like, “No, I don’t carry cash.” This is the easiest excuse. Once, a guy told me he takes Venmo. I said, “What’s that?”

But the guy corrected me: “No, I asked if I could buy a cigarette from you for a dollar?” and he held up an actual dollar bill as proof.

Immediately, I thought—this is some kind of scam. It felt like a scam. But the man was much shorter than me and wearing a nice sweater. I figured I could take him in a fight unless he had a knife.

I was worried about a knife because a year earlier a woman was attacked by a madman with a machete right here in town right in that neighborhood. As far as I can piece together, she survived. Apparently, she had a gun in her purse and as the madman closed on her with the machete, she shot and killed him dead. Such is small town Oregon Coastal life. It isn’t all just evergreens and ocean spray.

I have an irrational fear of being stabbed. Or maybe, it is rational. Stabbings seem to happen a lot around here. Maybe they do everywhere these days, but now I also have the fear of being macheted. Just another thing to add to the list.

The other day I was down at Harbor Freight and saw a machete for $4.29. I would’ve thought a machete would cost at least twenty bucks. But what do I know.

Maybe we should have background checks for machete purchases?

So, there the little guy stood, holding out the dollar. I was at a loss for words. Why was he asking ME for a cigarette? I don’t smoke. Do I look like a smoker? Maybe I do.

I said, “No, I don’t smoke.” Somehow that also felt like a lie, probably because I had just lied about not having any cash, which of course had nothing to do with what the guy actually wanted: A cigarette.

He was dejected.

“Guess I’ll have to find somebody who has a cigarette,” he said and walked away.

Maybe it wasn’t a scam. But it sure felt like one.

PS: I have been told that he was probably just trying to get me to give him a free cigarette. As in, who is going to take a dollar? You’d just give him the cigarette.

PPS: I had the ramen at Noodle Cafe. It had a hardboiled egg in it. Don’t know why I ordered this as I’m a ramen expert cook. Three minutes and add the packet of spice. I could drop a hard boiled egg in and it wouldn’t cost me $16.00.

PPPS: I looked it up. The average cost of a cigarette is only 47 cents.

😼 #CatStack Of The Week

Shadow has grown a single white whisker in the past couple of months. He has seen some things. Most notably: Fluffles, our new kitten.

🌊 Staring Into The Abyss - Writing Notes From The Oregon Coast 🌀

My partner-in-life,

K.L. Rockwell

, started doing Morning Pages a few weeks ago. I’ve done this before. It’s from a book called, The Artist’s Way by Julia Cameron. It’s SUPER popular amongst artists and writers and crafters and glass blowers. You’ve probably heard of it.

If you aren’t privy to the Morning Pages fandom, here’s what you do: Every morning, you write three pages of longhand text. It’s supposed to get your mind ready for another day of creating art. It can be about anything! Just like this newsletter!

I began writing Morning Pages again because I didn’t want to sit there staring at K.L. like a psychopath for twenty minutes every morning while she wrote. That, apparently, is called ‘Raw-Dogging The Morning.’

I do have a couple of beefs with Morning Pages. Mostly, I am not a morning person. The last time I did Morning Pages, I should’ve called it The Early Afternoon pages.

Another problem? I don’t consider the writing that I do to be art. It’s something, but not art. Perhaps I’m a communications crafter? Some writers do create art, I suppose. You know, serious literary types. Poets. It makes sense for

K.L. Rockwell

to do The Artist’s Way since she’s a watercolorist, AKA, an artist! (Note to artistic writers: I see you).

I’ll update you on my Morning Pages in a couple of weeks. See if it has given me the urge to buy some paint-by-number sets or maybe even a beret.

📚 Totally Recommended

Here are a few superb Substacks and a podcast I’ve read/listened to this week!

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First, here is one of my favorite new paintings from

K.L. Rockwell

. Her night skies are the 💥. I’m KL’s gallery manager at klrockwell.com so have asked her to make it available for sale. She said: “NO!” She said it’s in one of her sketchbooks so it’s not that easy to just pop it out and frame it. If she doesn’t, I’ll turn it into limited edition prints without her permission!

From

Gary Coulton

, an aspirational post:

This life is not a rehearsal

Nur Nadar

’s new podcast! Loved this one. Never knew who Ricky Seaman was before the pod, but he has one interesting life:

Humble Homies Episode 1: Ricky Seaman

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🚨 Self-Promotion Alert! 🚨

If you would like a signed paperback copy of The Unexpected Exorcist (once it’s ready sometime between now and the end of June 😹), consider becoming a paid subscriber. My memberships are still on sale till the end of the month!

To everybody who became a paid subscriber, thank you! I would DM to thank you personally, but sometimes people think that DMing is weird, so I try not to do it.

Your support means a lot!!!

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