Chew and screw and other signs of the poverty of values

I was browsing and I found this from the New York Post via the http://www.theblogmocracy.com/. Kinda made me think about growing up.

Hey, what the check?!

‘Adam” is a waiter’s nightmare. The 35-year-old accountant, who lives in Brooklyn and asked that his real name not be used, has been known to skip out on the check at restaurants. Once he and three friends racked up a $300 tab at B.B. King’s in Times Square, then stepped outside for a cigarette. It wasn’t until they saw a pedicab passing by that they decided the night’s bill would be on the house. Explaining his occasional adventures in the criminal world, Adam shrugs and says, “Sometimes you’re drunk or, I don’t know . . . ”

Apparently, he’s not alone.

Eating in a restaurant and leaving without paying the tab — known in police parlance as “theft of service” — rose almost 20 percent in the city last year, up from 315 arrests in 2009 to 376 in 2010, according to the NYPD. Of course, those numbers don’t include the many scofflaws who successfully “lick and split.”

Even celebs have been busted. Last week, actor Gary Collins was arrested for allegedly skipping out on a $59.35 bill in a Biloxi, Miss., restaurant. The 72-year-old TV personality spent the night in jail before being released on $5,000 bail.

I remember a story on Redd Foxx in Las Vegas and how he would slip out on cab fares a lot. According to the drivers after he got to his place he would say “You should be happy I let you drive me” or something like that and get out. The taxi drivers got to the point if he was on the street they would get on their radio and announce “Code Redd, Code Redd in front of The Sands…” Although he had declared bankruptcy that man can pay for a cab…or get a damned car or use the bus.

Whether or not Collins’ bizarre behavior was the result of a simple misunderstanding, this incident — and Adam’s dine-and-dash antics — raises the question: Why would grown men bail on a bill?

According to industry vets, it’s frequently older, professional-looking types who are breaking for the border — whether for the thrill of getting something for free or simply because of an overblown sense of entitlement.

Gotta love the techniques:

Recently, a group of eight 30-somethings came into Mehtaphor about 45 minutes before their reservation, demanding to be seated. Their table wasn’t ready, so the group opted to wait at the bar, where it ran up a tab of more than $100. But as its table was being set up a few minutes before the scheduled reservation time, the group harrumphed that it would no longer wait — skipping out on the bar tab, too…

…Some use a smoke break as a pretense, while others take advantage of sidewalk cafes. A few even stoop so low as to use their kids as a distraction.

“We’ve had husbands and wives and entire families do it,” says Michael Carpiniello, owner of SoHo’s South Houston restaurant, who says he encounters dine-and-dashers about once a month. “The kids go outside to play, the mom goes out to get them and suddenly it’s like, ‘Where did everyone go?’ ”…

…“People have gotten really slick at it,” says Frank Christopher, owner of the Upper West Side’s Smoke Jazz & Supper Club-Lounge. “You actually get really nice-looking customers coming in who are dressed up, and they’ll leave an old cellphone on the table or a purse with nothing in it while they’re ‘going outside to smoke,’ and then they leave.”

I may not have perfect morals but I have never walked out on a check. I recall getting busted for shoplifting some candy when I was 8. Fortunately the man who owned the store let me go with a warning. He knew my parents and I would have had my ass kicked for embarrassing the family like that. Now as a cop I do get comp’ed many things like the coffee at Starbucks and discounted or free meals at restaurants. I’ve even had my dinner (and the dinner of six other officers I was sitting with) purchased by a local businessman from the Houston area named Mattress Mack McIngvale (he even put in the tip). A few years ago I was sitting with four of my buddies from the Army Reserve when two customers had offered to pay for our combined bill (which had to be over 100 bucks). But when in uniform I go in planning to pay full price and I put in a buck tip for my coffee at Starbucks.

But this leads to some questions of what our society has become. It used to be your parents would teach you to pay your own way and expecting someone to support you was to some degree or another shameful. I never wanted to be dependent on others. I wanted to pay my own way and for the most part I have. Now being young and stupid (i.e. teenagers and twenty somethings) is one thing…but you gotta grow up some time. And middle class parents using their kids (and teaching their kids) to skip out on a check…maybe mom and dad need some remedial parenting classes.

If anyone is wondering, in both cases with my buddies we all went to the man and thanked him personally (he is a local celebrity who does a lot of charity events) and when I was in my Army uniform we thanked both men and made a joke about eating twice that night or coming back the next night.

An excellent book I read in the last few years was My Grandfather’s Son by Justice Clarence Thomas who was raised by his maternal grandparents. In spite of that man knowing what real poverty and discrimination was he never lost pride in himself or lowered himself to not working or expecting others to pay their way. Too bad many kids don’t get that story told to them as opposed to the crap in Dreams from my Father.

Here's to a great week...