Oh, and my friend has the sweetest daughter! The last time I saw her was three years ago and she was 4 going on 5. Today, she not only said "Hi!!' very cheerily, she came over and gave me a big hug not five minutes after I walked in the door! I asked L (friend's wife) why she was so terrific to me when I was sure she barely remembered me, and she said that they had been going through some family photos not too long ago and I was in several of them from her baby shower and other get togethers, so she knew who I was. I was completely charmed by her!!!

Lucky you! Loki wants to try everything, despite me giving him nothing voluntarily since I got him. Past owner let him eat off her plate/fork/whatever. He doesn't forget easily, even with a walnut brain.

Perkins the cat still remembers what drawer the treats I haven't given in in over three years were kept.

I usually tip 20%.

I tip 10% for mediocre service, 20% for good service and 25% if the kids make a mess and 30% for outstanding service. If I have cash on me, I try to always tip with cash, even if I pay the check with a credit card.

20% is definitely the NYC norm.

It is in Chicago, too.

Interesting article on Chow.com, crazy crazy person. I found myself reading with a kind of carcrash fascination for a while, until somebody replied to RantyMcRantypants thus:

O.k. so having ben someone who has worked both front and back of the house I am very disturbed by the comments made by old springsy here. Obviously you are either black or you order a steak well done and ask for ketchup...

...and nobody else who was commenting seemed to be thrown by this? WTF?

wrt the whole tipping thing - I gather waiters get less than $3.00 an hour in the US? (A quick Google implies it's around $9.00 an hour in the UK.) And, yeah, I totally grok why people DO do the big tipping thing - but, seriously, isn't there any way that people can change this bullshit slave labour rule, and make the employers PAY THE WAITERS A LIVING WAGE? Like they do elsewhere on the planet? I mean - it just seems so weird to me, that there's this whole huge service industry where people basically don't get paid by their employers, and everyone colludes with this, and just sucks it up and makes up for it with tips. Why doesn't anyone change the legislation to make it into a normal job with a living wage?

Because, Fay, that's dangerously close to being logical.

There are restaurants with flat service charges -- Per Se is one example -- but I think the supply of waiters and waitresses indicates that the market is working fine. I mean, slave labor is a bit hyperbolic.

eta: an article regarding how some servers prefer a tipping system. [link] One thing the article fails to mention is that if servers underreport tips to the IRS, that income is tax-free.

but I think the supply of waiters and waitresses indicates that the market is working fine.

I'm not sure that's the best way of measuring a market's success. A lot of people work in desperate situations for crappy pay; it doesn't exactly mean everything's fine.

I'm not sure that's the best way of measuring a market's success.

Well what would be? People choose to work as waiters, no one is being forced into it. That indicates that pay is adequate to ensure a supply of people willing to work under those conditions. They may want to be paid more, we all do. But they accept less.