We’ve Gone From Watergate to Tipgate

Listen, I’m not the guy to point out when something gets out of whack. We’ve got real writers for that. And I’m not angry, or about to jump off the Golden Gate Bridge over this. But I do have a bit of a burr under my saddle this morning.

It’s about the latest theme in the tipping business. To paraphrase an old Jerry Reed line, “to say the least, this has got a little out of hand.”

I took my family to the famous Tennessee barbeque place for some brisket and baked beans. We don’t go in and sit down and have Laverne, Maggie (surely you didn’t think I was going to say Shirley), or Tyler rush over with a smile and take our drink order. It doesn’t seem to work that way anymore.

We had to stand in line like cattle being run through an auction barn. The menu was written on the wall. Believe me, we had plenty of time to read the different offerings before we got up to….wait for it….the cashier! Not the waitress, waiter, cook, chief bottle washer, maître d, or owner.

She took our order and rung up our ticket about as simultaneously as is humanly possible. And she turned the screen around for me to tap my card and pay for the whole dinner. I hadn’t even taken a swallow of my sweet tea yet. As a matter of fact, we had to get into another line to get our drinks.

They had added an automatic 20 percent tip. All I had to do was press continue and the bill was paid. Now, they did give me a choice. I could change the 20 percent to 18 or 22; and then hit continue.

I felt hornswoggled. And put upon. Victimized. And to add insult to injury, the whole thing was set-up to make me look like the cheapskate of all mankind if I don’t just push continue and move on down the line. If my sweet, polite, don’t-ever-make-a-scene first wife hadn’t a’been standing right close, I would have told the little 14-year-old cashier that this ain’t the way they did it at the City Café in 1962!

If Leon hadn’t up and died on us, he would have explained it to her in terms that even a Tennessee woman couldn’t misconstrue about what she could do with a tip that was demanded BEFORE any service was rendered! It wouldn’t have mattered to him if Amy Vanderbilt and Dale Carnegie were rubbing elbows with him and listening to every word.

But here is the real rub. And where the scandal comes in. There was nothing about the 20 percent that was a tip. It was a surcharge at best. And plain out extortion at worst.

We carried our own tea over to the table. And two young gentlemen eventually brought our food out. And they did not return. I had to get up and get back in line to get more tea. I spent the whole meal wondering exactly who it was that got my 20 percent “tip.” How much went to the two guys who spent eight seconds hustling the meal out to us? Did the cook get a cut? Did the young girl who took our order AND our money get a double portion? Did management make anything off this deal?

And what part of the tip did they owe back to me because I had to wait on myself when my glass was empty….

Only in America.

Leon was the biggest tipper I ever saw. He paid for most all the eat-out meals when we were growing up. If he didn’t have enough to buy three 40 cent hamburgers AND leave a quarter or a couple of dimes for Cora at the City Café, we didn’t go in.

He was fourteen, I was nine, David was almost eight. But we understood you paid the tip AFTER you reviewed the service. And we really liked Miss Cora. She’d bring us extra French fries because, I reckon, we looked hungry. We figured she had earned the two dimes.

Cathy and I were traveling home one Christmas years ago when the boys were very small. We were both teaching and had almost no money. You’ve been there. We had to examine closely what we had to even make the trip. It was that tight.

We stopped fairly late at night at a roadside diner in Moulton, Alabama. The boys were extra cranky. Our friendly waitress was about 11 and a half months pregnant. I can still see her shoes, worn down at the heels and a bit worse for wear.

She was nice to the boys, won them over in a heartbeat. Nobody would be working at Christmas, in her condition, unless they absolutely had to! Our order came to 12 dollars and some change.

I left a 20-dollar bill on the table. And listen to my heart here, don’t think yeah Kesley Colbert. You would have, and have done, the same thing. It happens all the time around this great nation.

And that dear hearts, is the correct, and only, way to tip.

Respectfully,
Kes