Just call me moneybags

One of the unintended consequences of living in a country with supremely high taxes is that I am now a cheapskate. I, who used to shower wait staff with ample post-tax twenty percent tips, am now foisting upon restaurant tables a paltry pre-tax fifteen percent.

Although I feel shameful leaving such meager pre-tax amounts I rationalize it to friends when they glare at my contribution. I explain that as a haus frau I am not gainfully employed, that there was a minor flaw with my meal and/or the service, and that in Europe tipping is very uncommon. This works – sometimes.

Even when it doesn’t work I am able to navigate this treacherous tip terrain in the privacy of my own shameful eternal monologue – until recently.

This weekend I went to a café. The type of place that requires you order at the counter, grab your own water, coffee, napkins, utensils, and table. The type of place that calls your name and requires that you return to the counter to pick up your own food. The type of place where the only real service you receive is in being asked by the cashier if the food is for here or to go. It is usually at the type of place that I put the loose change in my pocket – anywhere from 15 to 60 cents in the tip jar – since I am doing the bulk of the work. But I didn’t have any cash on hand so I paid with a debit card.

After agreeing to the amount requested for the food and punching in my pin code the debit machine posed a question – of sorts, “Advise the server of tip amount.” The question – more of a statement of fact – presumed that a tip was due and I was to say out loud how much I valued the time of the cashier, the wait staff, and the other employees of the café.

I froze.

I knew that I could not tip 15 cents or even say 60 cents, because saying one of these amounts out loud would illicit glares and verbal derision from the cashier, my friends, and the strangers in line behind me. So I tried to do a quick calculation in my head but to no avail. As a humanities major in college I saw no real need for math but at that moment I came head to head with the full force of math’s real life applications and cursed my 18-year old former self.

As I tried to find the calculator function on my cell phone I stalled. I looked to the cashier, a woman in her sixties with a weathered face, a woman not easily amused by small talk and said, “Looks like those Blue Jays are trying to make a run at the pennant.” No perceptible response. I tried again, “Beautiful day outside.” Same result. And finally, “How long have you held this job?” A look of scorn, “Are you almost done? There are other customers waiting.”

Realizing that my time at the till was running short I blurted, “Add five dollars to my bill” and as aside continued, “for the tip.” Through clenched unsmiling teeth she grumbled, “Thanks.”

As I ventured back to the table my friend asked, “What did you order?” I replied, “A bran muffin.” “Yum. How much are the muffins here?” I pulled the receipt from my pocket, “Usually two dollars but I paid seven.”

My friend shrugged her shoulders and remarked, “I wouldn’t have given a tip at all. I mean you have to butter your own muffin. I guess you are a bigger person than I.” Muttering under my breath I responded, “That is not what I would call it…”