I am reminded of Friends. Sometimes even the $10.00 difference is enough to have serious impact, and since the point is supposed to be about the joy of the company and not about being an ass, the bill should be split properly and no one should grumble about it. Mostly, I dislike any situation where my concerns are taken to mean I'm stupid, petty or tightfisted.

Number 4 was Cher's If I Could Turn Back Time, or as Brendan called it, If I Could Straddle The Military.

We call that video, "If I Could Find My Clothes."

I normally don't drink, and so I'm very very touchy about that particular habit. I have started taking the bill and telling everyone what their share is, if people have ordered different things (some alcohol, some not; some appetizers, some not).

The WORST was a b-day dinner where one person asked the waiter to bring a nice wine for the table. The waiter, smelling profit, did. I didn't have any, neither did another person, and our dinners were about $10 each. Including splitting the b-day person's dinner 8 ways, the bill came to FIFTY DOLLARS A PERSON.

To be fair, not even the guy who'd gotten us into that predicament thought it was okay.

Question: My sewing tasks are piling up (repairs, drapery hemming, etc). I was thinking about getting one of those handheld stitcher thingies so I don't have to worry about power/voltage issues. Has anyone used one? Are they decent for small jobs?

The most civilized way I've seen this play out is, everyone looks at the bill and throws in what they owe.

That's what we usually do and I ordered thinking that's what we'd do. I was also in a bad mood going in, which certainly didn't help my view of things. My neighbor had a yard sale and I went in with her, but there was a lot of packing and unpacking of stuff for very little money. The last yard sale I had was about 10 years ago and I swore I'd never do it again. I suppose I'm ahead in that I made about $25 and made up my mind to send a lot of the stuff off the the Goodwill. Still, if I ever happen to mention "yard sale" again, feel free to question my sanity.

Legion is such a funny name for a cat. 'Cause she acts possessed?

Legion is such a funny name for a cat. 'Cause she acts possessed?

Yep. Like most kittens, Legion was a little psychotic, and seemingly contained multitudes.

But, we had sort of a tradition of giving cats religiousy names. The previous ones were Retribution and Penance (Retro and Penny). They were also named for their personalities, but in a Puritan way.

Here's a picture of the neighbor's split tree: [link]

Wow, dw! That's something!

Ginger, if you had expectations of only paying your share because that was normally the way it was handled, you are totally justified in being pissed. It's one thing if the change is stated up front, but you don't change the rules after the hand is played! Nowadays, I'm the first to mention separate bills. I don't care if the waitperson doesn't like it, but it's not any different than if they were serving 3 tables instead of one. Plus, it settles it in everyone's mind that they are paying their share, no more, no less.

Oh man, dw, that poor tree! And, yeah, poor stuff in its falling-path.

Ginger, you're completely within limits to be peeved at dividing a dinner bill when your dinner was considerably less expensive than others'. And I'm with Sail on requesting separate bills up front. It's less upsetting for me, and the waitron will wind up with a more generous tip, from me at least, for splitting checks without a fuss.

Hallo, lovelies. It feels like forever, and I skipped a lot and skimmed some. Didja miss me?