Tipping Up

I continue to be dazed and confused by tipping. I just don’t know how to do it.

Some dining establishments add a tip to your bill “for your convenience.” I know some people, okay, family members, well, let’s just say my only female sibling but that’s all I’m going to say; really, REALLY hates it when tips are pre-added to the bill. Upon seeing the offending addition she will let everyone within a three-mile radius know in her loudest retired-cop holler she disapproves of such “conveniences” and it must be removed forthwith although she would never actually say “forthwith.”

I, on the other hand, am exceedingly courteous and gracious to anyone near my food. I smile, say “please” and offer to bus my own table if they will only promise not to serve my food with a garnish of spit.

Tipping used to be an art form in Las Vegas. Now when you want to see a show, you buy a ticket for a set price that gives you an assigned seat, no questions asked. The price may ensure that afterwards when you dine at the casino café you have to order Top Ramen and on the way out you swipe crackers off of other people’s tables but at least you know where you’re going to sit ahead of time.

Back in the day, this was not the procedure. You would either buy a ticket without a seat designated, or would be given a “comped” ticket. “Comped” is how Las Vegas says, “Yeah, right” because if you get a comped anything, it’s because you have lost several times the face value at the dollar slots.

Your ticket guaranteed you would be allowed to stand in line. That’s all. Once you got to the front of the line, you handed your ticket to the maître d’ along with your first tip.

This tip and all further tips had to be in the form of green paper money. If you handed your ticket to the maître d’ with a handful of change, you would immediately be taken “fishing” in Lake Mead.

Once you were in the door of the showroom, you would be handed off to an usher. You had to tip him, too, or you would see the show from the confines of the kitchen. A small tip gave you a seat so far away from the stage, you would need powerful binoculars to see the blur that you thought might be either Tom Jones or Richard Pryor although you would swear to the rest of your party it was Rich Little doing the best Richard Nixon imitation ever. Unfortunately, it would actually be Bernadette Peters doing a striptease to “I’m a Little Teapot.”

A larger tip would allow you to follow the usher for several steps and then be seated at a long folding table, not unlike the ones used at church potlucks, in a folding chair that would be crammed so tight between two other chairs stray molecules had to wait in the aisle. You would sit in a position with your front facing a complete stranger on the other side of the table and the stage to your left. You were squeezed into such a confined space; you had no place for your shoulders and were unable to turn your body to look at the stage so you could only see the show out of your left eye. The guy on the other side of the table watched with his right and later you shared notes.

After the show, you would leave as a group.

A humongous tip, roughly the down payment on a luxury car, would seat you in a booth with five other large, hairy men who throughout the show smoked cigars and belched and expected you to laugh every time they did so.

The only way to see the show in comfort was to be on the stage.

The other day I had my car washed and no; not because I’m too lazy to do it myself. In Central Oregon, we put our garden hoses in storage from October to April. If you were to leave it out during this time, when you tried to run water through it in the spring it would resemble the fountains at The Bellagio in Las Vegas but only if you squinted and consumed several large adult beverages first.

You are expected to tip at the carwash. I tried to be prepared by having my money ready to hand over in a suave and sophisticated manner. I smiled, reached into my front pocket and with great flair and élan, gave the attendant my grocery list.

Good thing Lake Mead is far away.