To tip or not to tip: That is David Sedaris' question
I'm guessing the bag of litter we got weighed a good 40 pounds. It was really heavy, and I thought that if the only way you could get it home was to carry it in your arms, you'd probably put your cats to sleep after they'd gone through the first bag.
The next morning I left Dawn's house and flew to North Dakota. While in the Minneapolis airport I went for breakfast at one of those places where you order from a screen. Then you enter all your credit card information, and the machine asks if you want to tip 15%, 20%, or 22%.
For what? I thought. I mean, I sat myself. I ordered myself. I'm paying myself. Someone would bring me the plate of eggs, but it would be relatively light – it's nothing compared to the bag of litter I (or, OK, Dawn) had carried across a frozen parking lot the previous afternoon.
And the thing is, if you don't hit the 22% option, you feel like a cheapskate. Here you are, about to fly on a plane. Can you afford the extra 60 cents? Of course you can. I just feel that a portion of my tip should go toward me for all the work I've already done.
Then the person brings you your food and you see that she's an immigrant, and you think of how your grandparents were immigrants as well. Mine shined shoes while people shouted. "Learn to speak English, why don't you?"
Years later they opened a newsstand that sold Playboys, and when people told them they were going to hell, they still didn't understand them because they never really learned English. They were so lazy that way, my grandparents. Send them to the store for cat litter and they'd have likely brought home a sack of bird seed.
And so, I felt better about my 22% tip. The woman earned it just for going through security.
But wait, I thought, as I walked away: I went through security as well!
It was too late to take back my extra 60 cents, though, and so I went to my gate, and flew first class to North Dakota.
Me, a grandchild of immigrants!
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Story produced by Amy Wall. Editor: Emanuele Secci.
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