Sometimes I meet the most interesting people. I did Sunday at Souper Salad in Santa Fe. Let me explain.<\/p>\n
One can usually identify me as the man who, when holding open a door for someone at a restaurant, will ask for a tip.<\/p>\n
True, the denotation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twenty-five cents, please\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means, of course, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hand over the cash.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d The connotation \u00e2\u20ac\u201d and to me that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s what communication is mostly about \u00e2\u20ac\u201d is \u00e2\u20ac\u0153I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m just joking, trying to be friendly.”<\/p>\n
When the denotation (what the expression is supposed to mean) and the connotation (what we make of the words) collide, there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s often friction.<\/p>\n
But let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s return to Las Vegas:<\/p>\n
Charlie\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Restaurant, a popular hangout, might benefit from an automatic door, there being so much traffic. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s seldom that I enter without pausing to hold the door for someone else; and many hold the door open for me. It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a way of communicating, being friendly, of saying, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Even though I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know your name, I know you.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
So forget what I wrote about automatic doors. Yet others simply walk past, without acknowledgement, as they usher their family and the entire Seventh Fleet through the door I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m holding.<\/p>\n
Invariably, when I hold the door for someone, I get a thank-you. And only for those who seem appreciative (or who at least go through the motions of muttering thanks), I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twenty-five cents, please.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Now that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s in line with big-city hotels of old, when the restrooms used to be staffed with gentlemen (and ladies, I guess) who would hand us a cloth towel, straighten our collar, brush the snow off our topcoat and hand us a small cloth to shine our shoes.<\/p>\n
Even back in the \u00e2\u20ac\u02dc60s, when I had my first sampling of a porter-in-waiting at the Pick-Congress Hotel in Chicago, I was amazed that people often tipped a whole dollar. In those days, it would take me an hour to earn a dollar at the newspaper where I worked. My tip then was a quarter, the only coin I had at the time. The men\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s room attendant didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t exactly gush with gratitude when I crossed his palm with the coin.<\/p>\n
So, my request at the door of Las Vegas establishments isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t a payback for the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153spare-change\u00e2\u20ac\u009d plea most of us get before we enter; it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s just a way of being courteous (my mommy told me always to hold the door for people, even the able-bodied) and friendly. Usually my request leads to a chuckle. Some will say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Put it on my tab\u00e2\u20ac\u009d; others, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Well, I held the door for you yesterday, so we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re even.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
Only once in a lifetime of asking for a tip did I receive one. Almost as if we had rehearsed the routine, a woman, obviously already holding the quarter in her hand, transferred it to mine. That blew me away.<\/p>\n
\u00e2\u20ac\u0153I can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t accept it. I was joking,\u00e2\u20ac\u009d I said, half-chokingly. I finally persuaded her to keep the money. But that taught me that in most cases, the tone of voice says more than the content. Most people for whom I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve performed this small courtesy naturally infer my meaning. I wonder how much money I could pocket in a day if I were to station myself at that restaurant and ask \u00e2\u20ac\u201d in a serious tone \u00e2\u20ac\u201d for a quarter.<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll answer my own question: Very little change; most people would surmise I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m teasing.<\/p>\n
So what did the interesting man suspect when I posed as the \u00e2\u20ac\u0153quarter man\u00e2\u20ac\u009d at Souper Salad? The man, Hispanic, around my age, was entering while I held the door. I waited until he came in before asking for recompense for my magnanimous service.<\/p>\n
Was I in for a surprise! \u00e2\u20ac\u0153You think you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re gonna get money out of me?\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
I wanted to say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Sir, I was just joking \u00e2\u20ac\u201d that\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s me\u00e2\u20ac\u009d (or, as my English teacher would say, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153That\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s I.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d) Was the man \u00e2\u20ac\u201d loaded for bear \u00e2\u20ac\u201d perhaps resentful over having been dragged to a restaurant? Was there nothing in his cranial storage system that would indicate that here\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s a man, generally cheerful and friendly, who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s simply teasing? Had I reacted the way he did, there might have been a fracas.<\/p>\n
Imagine the next day\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s coverage in the Optic: \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Elderly Optic employee arrested in public affray.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d\u00c2\u00a0Whether I groveled sufficiently to convince the man that I wasn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t trying to hustle him, I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know. I didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t stay in his company long enough to find out. But yet, as we just happened to end up sitting at adjoining tables in the restaurant, I was aware of sporadic post-disturbance mumblings about \u00e2\u20ac\u0153the nerve of total strangers asking for money.\u00e2\u20ac\u009d<\/p>\n
He may have had a point. And I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve hit on this point many times before: It\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s difficult when going to restaurants to avoid people who ask for cash. Did I come across that way to the gentleman who took umbrage?<\/p>\n
I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122d like to think my jesting was unrelated to the man\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s reaction. It would be comforting, not to mention conscience-soothing to assume the man was ticked off in the first place. And, having had success most of the time in eliciting more smiles than quarters, I think I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll continue to be up to my old tricks.<\/p>\n
And in turn, feel free to ask me for a quarter when you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re holding the door.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sometimes I meet the most interesting people. I did Sunday at Souper Salad in Santa Fe. Let me explain. One can usually identify me as the man who, when holding open a door for someone at a restaurant, will ask for a tip. True, the denotation of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Twenty-five cents, please\u00e2\u20ac\u009d means, of course, \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Hand over […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=907"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":908,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/907\/revisions\/908"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=907"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=907"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rezio.net\/woa\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=907"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}