(no subject)

I took the boys to IHOP for dinner this weekend and our waiter was horrid. But, did I comment on it at the time? Did I take the time to sit down and write a rant about how bad he was? No. Because it didn't matter that much. I was frustrated at the time that our food all came out incorrectly due to the fact that he input it wrong. I also felt frustrated that he only refilled us once, and that was because I flagged him down. He ignored my stares and even my tactic of ceasing to eat as a hint that I needed more drink. At one point the manager mentioned to him that we needed drinks and the waiter yelled something incoherent back at him. It was an uncomfortable night. So, I only gave him a 10% tip. I always, always tip 20%. I'm a strong believer in generous tipping, and even more so in these hard economic times. I've had many family members who work/worked in tip-reliant jobs and I suppose I feel that if I tip well, in some sort of karmic way it will come back to my relatives. For me to only tip 10% was, in my mind, a strong indication of my dissatisfaction with his services. That, and I also wrote on the receipt

"refill drinks more often :)"

Lame? Probably. The total bill came to 29 and I wrote a tip for 3. Today when I checked the bank, I noticed I'd been charged 42. A 13 dollar tip! I was outraged because not only did he do a very bad job but now he was stealing from me! I called IHOP up and they looked through their receipts and found where I had indeed written a 3 dollar tip. And then, with my mad math skillz, totaled it up to $42. Talk about instant deflation of anger. I have no doubt that I made that mistake because I really do suck at math.

They refunded me the 10$ despite the fact that I wrote 42. Thanks IHOP. I felt like a cheapskate, fussing over 10$. Still, it's the principal of the matter.