A story I heard recently: a party of people dining out put together their amounts to pay the bill, and, to their shock, $100 was missing. Some people already had left the table. The result: someone had to pay that extra $100 to make the bill. Ouch. Not nice.

After posting the blog entry on tipping (Hot Lunch: Tipping; July 12), I’ve thought about experiences where people didn’t pay their part of the bill. This isn’t another rant on deaf-restuarant-patron’s-supposedly-poor-tipping-habit. Have you had to pay more than your share, because way more than the tip owed was missing? Ever has it happened where the person in charge of the bill stood up to say, “So, hey, everybody, I’m sorry I don’t know what’s happened, there’s dollars missing,” pointing to the dollar bills in her or his hand. Sounds eerily familiar.

This is stealing, nothing less. You have been robbed, sir. This is one time when you’re dealing with two things that don’t mix well: friends and money. And so, there’s very little room for “innocent mistakes”. Think of it in this way: dining out with your friends is a good test of trustworthiness.

The bright side is that as I get older and more friends hold jobs, the likeihood of this happening grows smaller.