PART I
We Christians, who are supposed to be generously carrying the name of Christ into all the world, who are supposed to show His Glory through our love and behavior? We stink as customers. We are typically loud and pushy and arrogant and stingy.
The worst place we exhibit this "sanctified" behavior is in a restaurant. We're famous for tipping 5% or less. Sometimes we don't tip at all; instead we'll lovingly leave a tract, because we know the server's soul is worth more than some measly tip. And what better way to share Christ's love than with a clever presentation of the 4 spiritual laws. My favorite tract is one that appears to be a folded $5 bill, but when you open it up it says, "Disappointed? You'll never be disappointed with Jesus!" Wow, this fun and delightful tract causes the server to immediately fall to his/her knees and make a confession of faith, because some Christian went the extra mile to buy that 25 cent tract, carry it to the restaurant, and leave it on the table instead of a gratuity. We should each buy a case of those tracts and leave them (instead of a tip) at every restaurant we patronize, because I know how the servers respond to such a display of Christian love. And besides, they are getting paid to do this job, right? They're making an entire $8.00 an hour, so they certainly don't need any tip. What they NEED is a religious tract. Yeah. That's just what they need.
My friend Diane says if you're going to bow your head to pray over a meal in a restaurant, you'd better be prepared to leave a 20% tip. Because, she says, you have called attention to the fact that you serve God, and you must not shame Him by being cheap with the gratuity. Servers are watching for real Christian behavior. They don't see much of it.
PART II
You probably know this, but it's true that Mother's Day is the busiest day in the restaurant biz. The only people who DON'T go out to dinner on that day are restaurant people, because we know better.
At Marie's, our Mother's Day was great...busy, happy, wonderful food. Just one teeny fly in the ointment: we had a "customer incident", which is restauranteze for "Dang, someone got hurt; do you think they'll sue?" Here's what happened.
A sweet old lady in a wheelchair came in for our brunch, straight from church. She was wearing her Sunday-go-to-meetin' clothes and her lovely old cross brooch. Now, when I say old lady, visualize Methuselah's mom. She had filo dough skin, you know? like, so thin you can see bones and stuff through it. And her arms were covered with red and purple bruising as though she'd come to California by way of Katrina. Anyway, when she was coming out of the bathroom stall, she scraped the back of her hand, and it just removed that filo dough skin like peeling away a layer of onion. Not much bleeding, but it was really sore, and she was, naturally, upset. Me, too. I dropped to my knees by her chair, bandaged her hand, hugged and patted her. I repeatedly apologized and reassured her. I asked her if I could pray for her, which she gladly accepted. (later, I would be accused of having "an attitude")
Her daughter and son, those good moral Christian people, seeing this as an opportunity to make some money, never once showed her concern or compassion, but instead started threatening me, and accusing me of "inconsideration" because she had injured her hand.
Let me just say this in my defense: I did not wake up Sunday morning and say to myself, "Hmm. I wonder how I can show inconsideration today. I know! I'll ambush the bathroom stalls so some pathetic old lady will scrape the hide off her hand! Yes, that's just what I'll do. Mwah ha ha!" then I twirled my handlebar mustache.
Oh, they'll sue for sure. You know they have some slick ADA lawyer on speed dial just for occasions like this. Poor mom. She's being beat up far worse by her obnoxious children that she was by our inconsiderate bathroom stall. I wish I had a nice tract to give them.
3 comments:
Yes to Part I. I am embarrassed to go out with some of those folks you talk about. One of my favorites was a couple of years ago at a place that had a salad bar. We were in a large group, and the place would not split the ticket (this is the usually deal, and should be the way it is, but in this case, the restaurant DID NOT add a gratuity to the total. YIKES!)
One of the couples ordered one buffet meal/salad bar and proceeded to eat off the same plate. And talked the entire meal about their involvement in the leadership at a very large church in our city whose name I won't mention - not the Grove-)... and the wife kept getting up and getting more food and they both kept eating. And they both had alcoholic beverages.
To top it off, they excused themselves to use the restroom right when the bill came. And never returned. Other people looked at the bill and figured out what they owed and put in the amount of the bill, some included a tip. Some did not.
THe really horrible thing was that they had teens at another table as part of a group who were not supervised and who had done mean things such as water into the salt and pepper, catsup on the bottom of the vase, etc. It was a mess.
A few of us stayed and helped clean up and made sure that there was a goodly tip.
But you are right. It is shameful.
I try to make up for the way my bros and sisters behave (or don't) as the case may be....
It is fun to be generous... and secret about it.
Please come to my restaurant frequently; bring your friends (just the GOOD ones!) and show some of my unsaved servers what being godly really means!
My Father-in-law is a notorious under tipper. Every Sunday after church. Paul and I always bring cash and sneak tip money under our plates or something like that so he doesn't see it.
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