Late Night Essay on: Bad Tippers

Most severs I've worked with will give you one of three responses to the question, "Who tips the worst?":

1. The elderly
2. High school kids
3. Minorities

And the only truth in any of those three is the real revelation: You can get a bad tip from any person at any time.

It's just the way it works.

That said, the most memorable of my worst tips have come from what I assumed to be working-class, but nonetheless, white individuals. Consider the family of four who had a check of $65-and-change for a well-delivered meal they had no complaints about, and the father left me exactly $66.

Or consider the (I assume) single father (and—again—I assume, NASCAR fan), who came in with a friend of his age as well as his own young son who required a high-chair. At a particularly busy moment, he asked me for a balloon for his kid, completely throwing off all of my timing for the other five tables. After I went to the back to inflate it, run around the kitchen looking for something to cut the ribbon with, and returning to the table with it—he later teased his kid by deflating it for his own friend's enjoyment as his son cried.

Then complained to my manager about the quality of the food.

The meal was comped, my manager bitched, and absolutely no tip was included on a $30-plus bill.

But actually, if I was to really single out a certain "group" I've felt has abused tableside service over the past, oh, 10 or so years and also failed many co-workers and I the most when we return to see what they left us with, it absolutely has to be those who believe religious literature qualifies as "a tip."

At times, your tip feels like a reflection of your worth as a human being. That said, when you've been short-changed (percentage-wise) on the bill, the little comic books where a kid gets a high school to turn around by having the bully transformed through a relationship with God—items like that kind of make you feel like somebody doesn't think you're worth much at all.

Tables like that remind me of Barbarah Ehrenreich's observations in the brilliant, brilliant novel, Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America:

"... My job is to move orders from tables to kitchen and then trays from kitchen to tables. Customers are in fact the major obstacle to the smooth transformation of information into food and food into money—they are, in short, the enemy. And the painful thing is that I'm beginning to see it this way myself. There are the traditional asshole types—frat boys who down multiple Buds and then make a fuss because the steaks are so emaciated and the fries so sparse—as well as the variously impaired due to age, diabetes, or literacy issues—who require patient nutritional counseling. The worst, for some reason, are the Visible Christians—like the ten-person table, all jolly and sanctified after Sunday night service, who run me mercilessly and then leave me $1 on a $92 bill. Or the guy with the crucifixtion T-shirt (SOMEONE TO LOOK UP TO) who complains that his baked potato is too hard and his iced tea too icy (I cheerfully fix both) and leaves no tip at all. As a general rule, people wearing crosses or WWJD ("What Would Jesus Do?") buttons look at us disapprovingly no matter what we do, as if they were confusing waitressing with Mary Magdalene's original profession."

That makes just about the perfect segway into today.

To these women's credit, they left me a remarkably good tip—again, percentage-wise. Sure, the "damage" I left them with wasn't all that damaging, but along with the cash came the literature that left me infuriated for the remainder of the day.

Their tip was tucked neatly and properly in in the middle of a brochure with none other than Ronald Reagan on the cover. With a close-up of him slauting—you know—something, the headline read in capital letters:

RONALD

REAGAN

REMEMBERED

Below his chin, on the left, it said:

Man of Courage...
Man of Faith

1911 - 2004

And the publishers of this literature couldn't use this photo without superimposing "the Gipper's" salute over an American flag for the background.

Excuse me while I go vomit.

My original suspicion was that this was a token handout for the Republican National Committee. (Now that I think about it, maybe there isn't really a difference.) In fact, on the back, it reads this (with a box to check):

"After reading this, I have accepted Christ as my Savior. Please send me free literature to help me grow in my relationship with God."

So .... I thought about this all day—and how completely fraudulent it is to, in fact, use the 40th president of the United States for this sort of abhorrently dishonest method of fundraising. I mean, at least practice what you preach.

"Are you still looking at that?" one waitress asked me during one of many slow points in the day.

Sadly, I was. But I'm still amazed at how much Reagan is adored (remember the Discovery Channel special about a year ago?). Nothing says "great American" quite like:

• The myth of being single-handedly responsible for "winning the Cold War"—a concept that ignores many other contributions; notably, previous American presidents, Lech Walesa, some guy by the name of Pope John Paul II, and (perhaps most importantly) Mikhail Gorbachev
• Doing his best not to address the AIDS epidemic—which just turned 25 years old, by the way
• "Voodoo Economics"/"Reaganomics," a concept that relies heavily on the supply-side and slashes taxes for the wealthy while adding to the burden of the poor—and the country as a whole
• Doubling the national debt
• A Savings & Loan crisis that cost many senior citizens their life savings
• "Arms-for-hostages" and the Iran-Contra scandal
• Being the only American president to have been divorced
• The debacle that was Nicaragua
• Using the dishonest reference of a Cadillac-driving welfare queen to further black stereotypes
• Starting a presidential campaign in Philadelphia, Miss.—where three civil rights leaders were murdered by white supremacists in the 1960s
  
• The War on Drugs

And there's plenty more. Point is: this dude was far from having Christian values.

Yet, sure enough, there were the members of the country club I was working for at the time; all bitching up a storm because there wasn't enough being done to remember the "Great Communicator."

"They oughta' put him on Mount Rushmore!"

"And some currency, too!"

Instead, he got hour after hour of fawning media coverage. That, and Illinois named a tollway after him.

And now, he can help you find Jesus—who, of course, would vote Republican. Yeah, right. As Bill Maher said to close out his March 31 HBO broadcast:

"... The Christian right are now officially the party of paranoia. Secularists are attacking Christmas! Gays are attacking marriage! Liberals are attacking values! White girls are being abducted at an alarming rate! You know, if you're going to be that paranoid all the time, just get high.

And the worst part is, the people bitching loudest about being persecuted for their Christianity aren't Christians at all. They're demagogues and conmen and scolds. And the only thing they worship is power. If you believe Jesus ever had a good word for war or torture or tax cuts for the rich, or raping the earth, or refusing water to dying migrants, then you might as well believe bunnies lay painted eggs.

.. And Jesus never said a word about gay marriage. He was much too busy hanging out with 12 guys. ... Now I know George Bush says Jesus Christ changed his heart. But believe me, Dick Cheney changed it back. The only thing Bush has in common with Jesus is they both went into their father's business and got crucified for it.

Thomas Jefferson called the type of Christian who trumpets his own belief in the divinity of Jesus rather than the morality of Jesus “pseudo-Christians.” And that's who's running our country today. And since they thrive so much on turning water into “whining”—and get off on their endless pretend persecution, this Easter season, let's give them what they want. Let's go to the zoo, get some lions, and feed them Tom DeLay.

So, today's lesson: Good money + Ronald Reagan + Christianity = Bad tip