I am ashamed by what I am about to confess, but nonetheless, I feel that I must. (Plus I'm just happy to have something thought-provoking to write about for the first time since July.)
Today I went into the city to visit my sister, which I try to do on occasion but haven't done in far too long. We walked around for a while before deciding to have a bite to eat. We sat down, ordered martinis, a sandwich for her, and eggs for me, and enjoyed a pretty decent lunch, and of course, each others' company. After the food was finished and the busboy had cleared the plates away, we sat for a while chatting and the waitress never came over to offer us anything else or bring us the check. It wasn't busy in the restaurant, but we waited for what seemed for an inordinately long time, until my sister said (jokingly, she later clarified), "We should just leave." "Are you serious?" I asked. After a few more "Do you think we should's, we decided to (sigh) dine and dash. I left first and walked around the corner and after a moment she followed me.
By the time we had reached the end of the block, though, talk had turned to "Oh my god, I can't believe we did that, we're going to hell." By the time another couple of blocks had passed, we were in the depths of our guilt and feeling completely horrible. Both law abiding women, we had never done anything like that, and having been a waitress myself, would never in my right mind (and without the haze of martinis) have done that to someone with what I know is one of the most difficult jobs out there, even if this particular waitress wasn't the most adept at her profession. Boyfriend waits tables, and if he told me one of his tables left without paying, I'd be livid... I'd hire a private investigator to track those cheap S.O.B.s down. But here I was, standing on a street corner, sweaty and tortured with guilt, having done it to someone else. Someone who could have been trying to put herself through school or provide for her six illegitimate children.
After a phone call to our very disappointed father who gave me a nice dose of "If you called me to clear your conscience, you called the wrong Dad," we tried to think of ways to make it right. We couldn't just go back... what if they had called the cops? Should we put money in an envelope and slip it under the door in the middle of the night? Maybe we should just go give a twenty to the guy playing bagpipes in Union Square...improve our karma a little bit.
Ultimately, we decided that we couldn't live with our guilt, and called the restaurant, claiming that we had a bit of "I thought she paid and she thought I paid" confusion, and having just realized our oversight we would be back as soon as we could haul our little fannys back there with money. The man on the phone was very thankful, and we ran back to the restaurant. We vehemently apologized to the hostess who said she didn't think we looked like the type to do something so heinous, and paid the $44 bill plus a 35% tip (a "Sorry we're shitheads" bonus), and left the hostess smiling and thanking us. It was definitely too easy to rectify the situation, but at least we did the right thing.... after we did the wrong thing, of course. We still looked at each homeless person we passed and frantically considered giving them all the money we had left just to show the universe we really are good people, but thought that with the 90% chance they'd buy booze or drugs with it, we were really doing the universe a favor in depriving them.
The moral of the story, kiddies... don't dine and dash. Well, that's the obvious moral, anyway. The real take-home lesson, other than "do unto others" and "people who wait tables have a hard life" is that... well, I'm really not cut out for shit like that.
Lesson learned. And it only cost $44. Plus tip.
Today I went into the city to visit my sister, which I try to do on occasion but haven't done in far too long. We walked around for a while before deciding to have a bite to eat. We sat down, ordered martinis, a sandwich for her, and eggs for me, and enjoyed a pretty decent lunch, and of course, each others' company. After the food was finished and the busboy had cleared the plates away, we sat for a while chatting and the waitress never came over to offer us anything else or bring us the check. It wasn't busy in the restaurant, but we waited for what seemed for an inordinately long time, until my sister said (jokingly, she later clarified), "We should just leave." "Are you serious?" I asked. After a few more "Do you think we should's, we decided to (sigh) dine and dash. I left first and walked around the corner and after a moment she followed me.
By the time we had reached the end of the block, though, talk had turned to "Oh my god, I can't believe we did that, we're going to hell." By the time another couple of blocks had passed, we were in the depths of our guilt and feeling completely horrible. Both law abiding women, we had never done anything like that, and having been a waitress myself, would never in my right mind (and without the haze of martinis) have done that to someone with what I know is one of the most difficult jobs out there, even if this particular waitress wasn't the most adept at her profession. Boyfriend waits tables, and if he told me one of his tables left without paying, I'd be livid... I'd hire a private investigator to track those cheap S.O.B.s down. But here I was, standing on a street corner, sweaty and tortured with guilt, having done it to someone else. Someone who could have been trying to put herself through school or provide for her six illegitimate children.
After a phone call to our very disappointed father who gave me a nice dose of "If you called me to clear your conscience, you called the wrong Dad," we tried to think of ways to make it right. We couldn't just go back... what if they had called the cops? Should we put money in an envelope and slip it under the door in the middle of the night? Maybe we should just go give a twenty to the guy playing bagpipes in Union Square...improve our karma a little bit.
Ultimately, we decided that we couldn't live with our guilt, and called the restaurant, claiming that we had a bit of "I thought she paid and she thought I paid" confusion, and having just realized our oversight we would be back as soon as we could haul our little fannys back there with money. The man on the phone was very thankful, and we ran back to the restaurant. We vehemently apologized to the hostess who said she didn't think we looked like the type to do something so heinous, and paid the $44 bill plus a 35% tip (a "Sorry we're shitheads" bonus), and left the hostess smiling and thanking us. It was definitely too easy to rectify the situation, but at least we did the right thing.... after we did the wrong thing, of course. We still looked at each homeless person we passed and frantically considered giving them all the money we had left just to show the universe we really are good people, but thought that with the 90% chance they'd buy booze or drugs with it, we were really doing the universe a favor in depriving them.
The moral of the story, kiddies... don't dine and dash. Well, that's the obvious moral, anyway. The real take-home lesson, other than "do unto others" and "people who wait tables have a hard life" is that... well, I'm really not cut out for shit like that.
Lesson learned. And it only cost $44. Plus tip.
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