Splitting Headaches…

I’ve told you about my wonderful group of friends and our birthday dinner celebrations before.  And I’ve told you how we insist on singing to the birthday girl and ordering  one or two lovely desserts to share.  But have I told you what happens when we get the check to pay?  Yes, we become that women eating out cliche where we pull out our phone calculators and try to figure the bill out to the penny.

Well, last night we went out to dinner to celebrate two birthdays.  And we went to a Spanish tapas restaurant, a gorgeous mansion built in what was once a doctor’s residence and clinic around the mid-1800s. If you’re not familiar with tapas, they are small plates of food, cold or hot, that can be shared or eaten as appetizers or dinner.

There were seven of us at dinner and we usually get separate checks then everyone pays their own and chips in for the birthday person so they don’t pay.  Well, this restaurant doesn’t do separate checks.  In the end, it probably wouldn’t have helped anyway!

Three ordered their own plates and the other four ordered five plates to share.  One friend had a glass of wine, one had iced tea, the rest of us stuck to water.  The restaurant very graciously comped us two desserts to share.

When the bill came, we discussed how to split it and no one really was sure.  We tried dividing it first by seven, then by five (taking out the birthday people).  We took out the price of the drinks first so those people could pay for their own.  We added together the five tapas dishes, divided that amount in half, because the two birthday girls were part of that group.  We tried dividing their portion by seven, as each birthday girl would get her dinner free then pay one seventh of the other birthday girl’s meal.

It would have made a great word problem on a math test.  You know, “Seven friends went out to dinner.  Four had five plates to share, three had their own dinners.  One had a glass of wine, one had an iced tea.  Adding in a tip of 18 percent…”

The waiter came by to see if the check payment was ready and we waved him away, by now laughing uproariously over our arithmetic attempts.  He backed away looking a little confused.  Finally, somehow, we arrived at amounts that everyone was happy with, paid our bill, hugged each other and left.  Truth be told, we were happy to come to any resolution. 

When I got home and told hubby what had happened, he said, “Why didn’t you just split the bill?”  But, Honey, I explained, we were celebrating two people’s birthdays and they shouldn’t pay for their own dinner and one person had a glass of wine…  Hubby just shook his head and smiled.

###

Diane D.

Photo from Pixabay