Shoes, Ships, and Sealing Wax

Breakfast drama

We went to Denny's for breakfast today. About the time we were wrapping up, I was distracted by a customer at the front counter. As he got louder, I figured out that he and the manager were disagreeing over his change.

The customer claimed he'd given the manager two twenties to pay his $24 check, but he only got four bucks change. The manager was unyieldingly refusing to admit shortchanging the customer, since the customer left the restaurant and then came back.

I was inclined to side with the manager, just because I have a bit of a caveat emptor attitude...when you get change, you count it there in front of whoever made the change, and resolve any discrepency right there. And if you're expecting sixteen bucks and you get four, I'd think you'd notice right away, since it wouldn't even be the same number of bills. And once you leave...sorry, the transcation is complete and you accepted the outcome.

The customer, though, was getting louder and more belligerent, and the manager actually called the cops. At that point, were I the manager, I'd have given $12 to get rid of the guy.

The customer called his waitress over and demanded his four dollar tip back, too. (Her tip went up from me then.) And I didn't care if the guy was right or wrong about his change, when he said "Don't you know how to count American money?" to the manager, I really got mad. I wanted to let that jerk know that was completely uncalled for.

But I didn't do squat. No, I'm an avoidance freak. I wanted to get our check paid and get the heck out before it got uglier. Which is exactly what we did (passing the arriving police officer in the parking lot), so I'll never know how this little drama played out.