So slick
Sunday, August 28, 2005
Sometimes, it’s hard to remember your waiter’s face.
So after eating at IHOP at 1 in the morning after basketball at gym night, my anonymous friend (who recently came back from Colombia) and I went to the front to pay. Since it was late at night, they were low on staff, so our waiter was also the cashier. After paying for the bill, we looked at the bill again to check on how much tip we should leave. $2.50. So i pulled out two shiny quarters from my wallet and placed them on the $1 bills.
My anonymous friend took the opportunity to do a “discreet” switcheroo with the pretty clean quarter for one of the most distressed quarters i’ve ever seen in my life. It looked as if acid had eaten away half of the surface, the resulting corrosion so malignant looking that it looked like it might somehow leap onto human skin if one wasn’t careful. All this was done surreptitiously with an “Oh-i’m-so-slick” expression on his face. Our waiter who, to my chagrin who was less than one foot away from us the entire time, observed the entire interaction, watching us struggle on how much tip to leave and then deciding against a pretty coin and leaving him the nasty quarter.
I couldn’t hold it in. I burst out laughing and ran for the door. My friend came after me, saying, “I didn’t realize the cashier was our waiter!” I have no idea what our waiter thought of us. Hopefully, we’ll just be an amusing story that he can tell to someone near and dear, and not the straw that breaks the camels back so that he goes postal. That would be a tragic end to our story.
Oh well. I’m only in town for a week--looks like I’ll never know.
If an IHOP burns down I’ll be sure to inform you.
After I recover from my fit of laughter.
Posted by Greg on 08/28 at 04:42 PMI’m sure Gary has a few slugs he could trade for those gnarly quarters.
You and anonymous AC should go there again at midnight sometime this week to see if he remembers you.
Posted by on 08/29 at 08:05 PM