09-010
Recently I had one of those days when I had a real impish
feeling. You know, light-hearted, happy-go-lucky, devil-may-care. And I wanted
to do something out of the ordinary. Maybe a little silly. So I set out.
I arrived at a café. The
waiter asked if I wanted coffee. I don’t drink coffee. Well, I do, but not very
often. I like tea. I said, “I like tea.” He said, “Uh huh.” Then I said, “Can I
have some?” “Some what?” he said. “Tea,” I said. “Sure,” he said.
Surly, I thought, and
so I began calculating what tip he was going to get from me. I usually start at
15 percent and knock off points for deficiencies. Then he said, “What kind?” I
said, “What kind of what?” He said, “Of tea.” By now I had him off about three
percentage points. “Do you want hot or iced tea?” he asked. “Oh, I see,” I
said, “hot.” He said, “I’ll be right back with that.”
Well now I had to
recalculate and so I decided to push him back up to 14 percent.
While I was waiting for
my tea, I noticed that this tete-a-tete had taken a little edge off my good
feeling. I was disappointed with myself and I decided to forget what happened
and to start over. I came into the cafe feeling festive and I didn’t want
anything to spoil that.
The waiter was back. As he put down my cup and saucer and the pot of tea, some of the water splashed out into my lap. “Oh, I’m sorry,” he said. “That’s okay,” I said. It was one of those awkward moments. (But 14 percent was now down to 11 percent, if you know what I mean.) “Let me refill that water for you,” he said. “Okay,” I said.
I ordered soup. It gave
me an idea. It’s that old joke where a guy calls the waiter over and says, “Oh,
waiter, there’s a fly in my soup.” And the waiter says, “Well don’t talk so
loud, everybody will want one.” I always laugh at that.
What I thought I’d do
was to call the waiter back and say, “Oh, waiter, there’s a polar bear in my
soup.” Wouldn’t that put him in his place; he’d have nothing to say.
In time my soup
arrived. As the waiter began walking away I sprung it on him.
“Oh, waiter,” I called.
“There’s a fly in my soup.”
“Oh, yeah? So now I
suppose,” he said a little testily, “you want me to say don’t let everyone else
hear you because they’ll want one too.” He stared at me.
“Wha…oh, no,” I recovered,
“I meant to say there’s a polar bear in my soup.” I started to laugh but he cut
me short. He looked down into my soup bowl and said, “No there isn’t.”
After I ate my soup and
sandwich I determined that seven percent was more than justified.