The Good Old Days. 05/08/26

Remember when you used to go to a restaurant, a waiter or waitress would serve you, and then you’d leave a tip depending on a) how good the service was or wasn’t and b) how cheap you were or weren’t? Well those rules, like most rules, don’t apply anymore. My wife and I attended a concert in an arena where you walked to a self-serve area and picked out food and drinks that were sitting pre-wrapped under warming lights, your choice of regular burgers, cheeseburgers, veggie burgers and veggie cheese burgers. That was it. Then there was a refrigerated section with cold soft drinks, seltzers, beer and pre-canned vodka drinks like the ubiquitous Surfside Iced Tea and Vodka. You made your choices and proceeded to the checkout counter where a human being rang up your order and you then tapped your credit card. Then came the prompt, how much tip would you like to leave, 10%, 20%, etc. The question in my head was, “A tip for what, exactly?” John always prefers to lean on the generous side to prevent them from expectorating and that gave us the impetus for our first comic. At least in this case, you didn't have to worry about them spitting on your food since the burgers were pre-wrapped in tin foil. But my favorite tipping story ever occurred when my wife and I went out to dinner at this fantastic hole-in-the-wall gem called Drop Pasta Not Bombs. No kidding. We ate dinner there and the bill came out to around $80. We were served by a high-school girl who was so nice and accommodating, we left her a $25 tip. It was on one of those machines they bring to your table, you choose your tip while the server discretely looks in the other direction. The girl came back to the table with a huge smile and said, “Thank you so much! That was so generous!” We smiled and told her she did a great job. Once outside I told Joanie, aka my wife, “It wasn’t that good of a tip.” Was I mistaken. When I looked at my phone later on that evening I discovered that my tip wasn’t for $25. It was for $225. When I hit the prompt on her machine, at first the “2” didn’t show up, so I hit it again. I guess that first “2” did in fact show up after all. Sigh.

Our next comic is another one in our “Then and Now” series. John and I were discussing cookware, pots and pans, when it occurred to us that we used to discuss another kind of pot with the same degree of specificity as we used to discuss types of marijuana. If you are old enough to recognize the term, “Acapulco Gold,” then you’ve come to the right place. Nowadays they have dumb names like Wedding Cake, Amnesia Haze (no thanks - I’m in enough of a haze already), Honey Badger and Kush. My absolute favorite old time name was Maui Wowie. And listen, don’t assume I take anything like this. I just looked up the names online. And if you believe that, I’d like to sell you some oceanfront property in Nebraska.

Have a great weekend and a happy Mother’s Day. Summer has been threatening to break out all week (except for a snowstorm in Denver on Tuesday). And if you’d like to leave us a tip for the comic strip, ahh forget about it. Just don’t spit on it.

Andy and John