One Cheap Bitch

There are a few things in this world that make my skin crawl:

1. Snakes. I grew up in the country where Coral snakes and Copperheads lived under the same woodpile as the non-venomous garden variety. They all shared the same future though: head cut off with a hoe, no questions asked.
   
2. People who complain about something but don't want anyone to fix the problem. Then don't complain. The purpose of complaining should be that you want a different action. Otherwise, it's just for the sake of complaining.
   
3. Going out to dinner with a large group of people. Allow me to explain:

It's never easy, is it? I don't think I would like it even if I didn't have years of experience on the other side of the menu. In a group of ten people, there is always someone who wants to scam in order to save themselves a few bucks. "Oh, I have to catch a train, so I'm gonna just throw my money in now for everything I had. Here's a twenty, that ought to be enough," and they skedaddle their cheap ass outta there. Even Andrew Jackson himself knows that the order of nachos and two beers was more than twenty bucks. He rolls his eyes in embarrassment from having been inside that tacky whore's tacky knock-off Prada bag that she bought on Canal Street.

This happened to me last week. I went to celebrate a birthday with a friend. Drinks were had, jokes were made and mechanical bulls were ridden. At the end of the night, the patron saint of waiters gave us our check. Of course the cheapest people at the table grabbed it first. God forbid they should be the last one to hold it and have to pay an extra two or three bucks. The cheapest bitch of them all was a a friend of a friend who I have absolutely no allegiance to so I don't give a shit if her cheap ass reads this or not. After I finally commandeered the bill so I could make sure everything was happening as it was supposed to, I asked what everyone had put in. Cheap Bitch said, "I'm using a credit card and need to pay ten dollars."

"Ten dollars? What all did you have?" I asked.

"One margarita, that's it."

I looked at the bill in my hand. One small margarita was $9.00. (Truth be told, I didn't even know there was such a thing as small margarita. Mine was $13.00. What the fuck is the point of a small margarita anyway?) "So your margarita is nine dollars and you're going to leave ten? What about tax and tip?" I asked in front of the whole table.

"Yeah, my drink was nine so I'm leaving ten."

I hated this bitch. "So for tax and tip, you're leaving a dollar?"

"Well, what do you think I'm supposed to leave?" she wanted to know. Her head was swaying back and forth like she was daring me to give her an answer.

I gave her an answer. "Well, tax is about 8.25% so that means you are leaving about a twenty-five cents for a tip?" I didn't even mention that we all kinda figured we'd pitch in to pay for the birthday girl.

"Yeah, I'm leaving ten dollars."

"So you're alright with leaving a quarter for a tip?"

"I have a very limited credit card and alls I can afford is ten dollars!"

That ain't a credit card, honey, that's just sad. "Fine," I said and went on with figuring out the rest of the check.

When I finally got it all settled, she told me that she went on ahead to the waiter and paid her portion because she had to go. Maybe it was double fucking coupon night at the dollar store and she needed to get there by midnight to get that roll of toilet paper that was marked down to fifty cents. I went to the waiter to make sure she had paid and he told me she paid nine dollars. Bitch didn't pay for tax OR a tip. Nine dollars, period. I've met her once before and wasn't that impressed, but from now on she is dead to me.

How can people be like that? If you know that tax exists, you have to at least pay that part of your bill, right? Okay, so she didn't tip. No surprise. She also turned down a piece of birthday cake. I know it was because the restaurant was charging a $1.50 slicing fee per person and she didn't want to pay that. She also finagled for someone else to pay the $5.00 required to ride the mechanical bull. "Oh, I don't have my i.d. so they won't let me buy a ticket," she claimed. Birthday Girl told her she'd go do it for her and then just give her the ticket. She did, but then it was necessary to have her hand stamped to prove she were 18 years old. Cheap Bitch miraculously "found" her i.d. in one of her pockets after the five dollars had been paid. She did not pay it back, She rode the bull and I wish more than anything it would have bucked her cheap ass though the wall and into the men's room where she could have enjoyed a big bite of urinal cake.

The check was eventually paid and the waiter was very happy with his tip. There was no slicing fee though and I think it was because we offered him the last piece of cake. We gave him some cake, he left off the slicing fee. He left off the slicing fee, we tipped him better. What goes around comes around which is exactly why Cheap Bitch will get her karma some day. Like maybe she'll get a hell of a paper cut from her buy one get one free coupon for generic tampons. Cheap bitch.



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To Tip or Not To Tip

A national debate is rearing its ugly head amongst us and I must confront it. It seems that some people need to know if there are times when it is okay to completely stiff a server. And my answer may come as quite a shock to some of you, but I say: yes. On the rare occasion, it is okay to stiff a server. A reader named Dee writes:

Only once was it so bad that I decided a tip wasn't deserved. When the waitperson came to pick up the signed credit card receipt, I took the opportunity to tell him that there was no tip included for his service. I told him that since he waited until clearing from the appetizer to tell me that they'd run out of Prime Rib, that I never received the hot tea I'd ordered, that I got baked potato as a side when I'd ordered rice pilaf, and that my dining partner's entree arrived 15 minutes before my second choice was served... for all those reasons, I told him I didn't feel he deserved a tip.

I think Dee was right to refuse a tip and she was also right in explaining to the server why he wasn't getting one. Forgetting to get the hot tea was his fault. Of course, things slip our mind and we can fuck up. And sometimes at work you can have only four mistakes happen all week but all four of them happen to be at the same table. It's like the perfect storm of bad service. Maybe the kitchen didn't tell him they were out of Prime Rib until it was too late. Shitty, yes. But maybe he should have accepted the blame and try to make up for it by bringing another app that was comped while she waited. He certainly should not have brought out her friend's food when her order wasn't ready to come out with it. That was dumb. And maybe the kitchen sent out the wrong side, but if a table has already been slighted, it's the server's responsibility to make sure everything else is right. I would have been hovering in that kitchen to ensure that it came out quickly and correctly. I have found too that it helps if you just are completely honest to a table when this shit happens. Tell them: I Screwed up. I am sorry. What can I do to make it better? Customers like it when we accept responsibility for mistakes. They hate it when you blame the kitchen or the the runner or the host or whoever the fuck. They aren't dealing with any of them, they are dealing with the waiter, so therefore everything is the responsibility of the waiter. Period.

Of course, I think it's better to leave at least 10% so that there is enough to cover the taxes and tipping out. And if you are really unhappy with the service and you feel it was the waiters fault, let a manager know or just don't go back. I stiffed someone once. It was at The Black Eyed Pea in Houston. The waiter was an idiot and kept fucking up our order. And then at the end when we mentioned something about going back home, he said, "oh to your trailer park?" What the fuck? Did he just call me trailer trash? Now I may have spent my formative years living in a mobile home (trailers are for horses and mobile homes are for people, just so you know) but he cannot insult me like that. He should have had the decency to go to the sidestand and then do it like all self-respecting waiters. That was the final nail in his coffin and I picked up his 20% and put it right back in my pocket.

Yes, Dee, it is okay. Choosing to leave no tip is alright if there is justification. We know when we are doing a shitty job and sometimes it just happens. When it happens to me, I am not surprised with a stiff. What we don't like is when we know we gave great service and don't a tip. Or when we realize we fucked up, we tried to fix the problem and they say they are satisfied and then they still don't tip. Fear not, sweet, Dee. You were okay in your actions. We love that you tip above 18% when it is deserved. For that, you rock.

What are your thoughts, fellow servers?