During the summer break after my first year in college I got a job working with a guy who sold Family Group Portraits. The way it worked was that we, the door-to-door sales people, would go to a neighborhood to sell time slots to have a professional photographer come to the house and take group and individual portraits. He would set up a background and take a variety of shots. Then several weeks later a "proof passer" would come out and show slides of the photos and get the customer to order as much as they could. We, the salespeople, sold a coupon and got to keep the money the customer paid for the coupon. We had to sell them at the suggested price which was about $12 because they wanted the customers to be committed to the photo shoot.
The Crew of salespeople would consist of Benny Kane, the sales manager, me and one or two other guys. They were all unique and interesting individuals and Benny Kane was no exception. He was from New Orleans and a pure character. One of the things that Benny was good at was buying lunch. Before the shift we would stop at a Jack in the Box, or somewhere like that, and I would usually just want a cup of coffee. Benny would always insist that I at least get a sweet roll or something. I would tell him I already ate but he would act like it was going to hurt his feelings. Then in the middle of the day when we stopped for lunch he would choose somewhere like a Sizzler Steakhouse and we would all order steaks. When we got to part where we were supposed to pay he would say "Hey Marc, it really is your turn, I bought the last time. You don't expect me to pay for all of your meals", or something like that. He pulled off this routine quite a few times and even though I could have objected a little more aggressively I usually let him get away with it. There is no telling where he is now but I hope he is doing all right.
A few years ago, a friend invited me to a nice place and insisted on me ordering a nice dinner. I tried to order a hamburger but he insisted. He said "Don't worry, its on me. I am buying! We had a nice meal and then right before the check came he had to go to restroom. He was in there no less than 15 minutes. The check came and I found myself sitting at the table with that check for what seemed like a long long time. It was a pretty good plan he had but he was dealing with a knucklehead of my caliber and when he came out of the restroom his grin seemed to turn to an expression of shock when the check was still there.
We experienced some memorable restaurant check experiences with a couple we used to know about 25 years ago. We got along with them just fine but when we went out to eat with them paying the bill was always a memorable event. At the time we were on a pretty tight budget and there was this particular Tex-Mex restaurant that would have a special on fajitas for 2 on a particular night of the week. We would order the fajitas which came with the typical side orders like beans, pico de gallo, and tortillas. We would order water and since there were also chips and hot sauce, we could eat a nice meal for a decent price. Our friends would also order the fajita special but they would also buy drinks, order extra cheese, sour cream, and the result was that they were spending a large percentage more than us. The fellow would keep saying, "have some cheese" or "have some sour cream". It was beyond simply being polite; he would make an issue of it and hold the bowl of cheese up and try to pass to me. I would always say, "no thanks". Then at the end of the meal they would always grab the check and calculate what half of what the bill was. One time I pointed out that since we only had the special, then our order was $12.95 plus tax, or whatever it was. The response was "Oh maybe we should have brought a calculator". In the end we always ended up paying for half the bill but for some reason we would sort of forget about it and then next time it would happen all over again.
In the spirit of full disclosure, I must admit that over the years I have been accused of being "cheap" enough times that I wonder if it isn't true.
No comments:
Post a Comment