Source: Reddit
I’ve been dealing with some really severe health issues, and am also visually disabled and don’t drive. I’m definitely doing better than I was before, but can sometimes be hit out of nowhere with flareups.
Now, because of my eyes, I can’t navigate by bus, so I pretty much get rides from family/friends/neighbors and/or use Uber/Lyft when I really need to go somewhere. So, on Monday I had a pretty important appointment in the afternoon to deal with matters related to my grandma’s estate, as she recently passed away. The plan was, I’d take a Lyft to my meeting, then run some errands in the area (pick up my meds, etc.), and then would go to the restaurant next door to have something to eat and my mom could meet me there when she got off work shortly after.
Everything goes according to plan, it’s all a pretty good day, and so on, until I get to the restaurant. I order and everything okay, but then start suddenly feeling really sick. So, I text my mom to let her know and ask her to please hurry, and nibble at my food and such while I wait for her. I also pay the check in full with my usual 20% tip and such, but don’t really pay much attention because I’m pretty out of it by then.
So, my mom gets there to get me, but even with having taken my meds I need to run off to the bathroom. Now, apparently (I, of course, know none of this until later), in the meantime, my mom glances at the check that’s still on the table and notices that it’s wrong. The restaurant has early dining specials before 6:00. In fact, these early prices are programmed into the computer that calculates the checks to make it easier on the staff, as we know because we’re regulars and on a first-name basis with all the managers. It’s only a $2.00 difference, but the waitress had literally done a manual override to charge the full price. So, my mom asks for a glass of wine for herself on a separate check while she waits for me because I’m really sick, and asks the waitress to please fix my check while she’s at it.
So, I get back to the table to sip my lemonade for a few while I see if it’s safe to get in the car, only to have the waitress come back, hand my mom something, and basically straight up toss a new check into my lap – “here, you just sign this” – now, granted, I was pretty out of it, but not so much so as to not remember having already signed a check, so I was pretty confused. I open it up to look, and see the glass of wine on there now. So, I’m just like “oh, okay, I guess I’m paying for your wine.” My mom looks up startled from what I can now see is her own check “Wait… what? Let me see that!”
Sure enough, the waitress had fixed the early dine price thing, but when I was too out of it to notice that the first time around and my mom had told her how sick I was, she went ahead and put the glass of wine on my check as well, as well as printing my mom her own check for that same glass of wine, apparently counting on me to just blindly sign it.
My mom literally took both checks directly up to the manager. The full meal and wine and all ended up being zeroed out, because it was all so blatant. So, she turned a 20% tip on two separate checks into no tip and a loss for the restaurant. I’ll be surprised if we keep seeing her in there.
