20 cents is all it took

twenty pennies. four nickles. two dimes. and it cost friday's (if you let this load, be sure to kill the annoying music) $25.16 on the bill JJ & i had. the short of it is this: be sure to check your bill when they give it to you.

so rewinding a little, JJ & i decided to have dinner at friday's. she had a hankering, and i hadn't been to one in i don't even remember how long. (as far as i can tell these days, friday's = applebee's = 99 restaurant = chili's - it's all the same thing) so things started off fine. hostess seated us fairly promptly (~715pm) and told us our server's name (something with an 'R'). we started looking thru the menu and a few (long) minutes later, he shows up and takes our drink orders (Dr. Pepper & 16oz Sammy Octoberfest). he returns with JJ's soda and informs me that "the machine broke" so i switch to a regular Sammy.

the machine broke????

anyways, he returns with my beer and we place our order (1/2 rack ribs & smoked brisket dip sandwich). ~730pm

silly me figures that it won't be that long for us to eat. it's nearly 8pm when my meal is delivered by a lackey. JJ & i look at each other and wonder where her dinner is. we also begin to wonder where the au jus that we thought we saw on the menu was, as my brisket was looking a little under-au jus'd. and around this time i'm nearly finished with my beer and i notice a seed (we think) stuck to the bottom of the glass.

when 'R' shows back up (nearly 810pm now) to ask if we need anything (he appears to be oblivious to the fact that i have food and JJ doesn't) so i bring the seed to his attention. he tips the glass and as he starts to walk away, JJ asks about my missing au jus (my food is rapidly cooling at this point). he brings my beer glass to someone with a headset, they tilt the glass and they disappear somewhere. while this is transpiring, another lackey stops by and he asks if we need anything, JJ asks for a refill and her meal (mine continues to cool). we continue to muse, both of us have taken to nibbling my rapidly cooling fries.

i receive a 'fresh' beer (the glass was clean, but the taps need to be cleaned) and we ask again about JJ's meal. a few minutes later and by 815pm her meal arrives. (i forgot to ask what the temp was)

we're both starting to be irritated at this point and not sure if i'm getting a comp beer or not. so we try and enjoy the meal. mine was south of luke warm at this point, but i decide it's not worth getting too upset over. by this point, i've pretty much written off eating at friday's again. 'R' walks by us several times while we are eating, but never once stops by to check on us. by 830pm, i've finished my meal and JJ isn't far behind. ~835pm 'R' stops by and asks if we need anything, and i reply 'napkins'. he clears my plate and returns a few minutes later with a bone plate, a small stack of napkins and 2 handy wipes. (to their credit - their handy wipes are big, plush, and heavy duty)

by the time he returns however JJ is finished, so he fails to notice that she is done, so he doesn't clear her plate.

845pm - 'R' shows up and asks if we want anything else (desert, etc), we decline and ask for the bill. he returns a few minutes later with the bill.

problem. i see i ordered 2 sandwiches. (the good news is i was only charged for 1 beer)

so, 'R' is at the booth across from where we were sitting and as he turns to walk away, i tap him and ask why there were 2 sandwiches. he stammers something about something (it made no sense to us) and wanders off to correct it.

a few minutes later, he returns with the original bill and a handwritten $25.36 written on it.

i look at it and pull my phone out and start to calculate things out. i can't get it to add up. each time i calculate it, i get $25.16. JJ starts to calculate it and gets the same total. we both wonder how he landed at that total. 'R' has vanished, so we decide that we would like to speak with the manager. shortly before this, we had decided that we were only going to leave $1 as tip (in quarters, i add a penny, so $1.01 total) which is more insulting than leaving nothing. (you leave nothing, they know they fucked up, you leave them $1, they learn that they fucked up. JJ tels me about this bitchy waitress that dared to be surly with her sister - it ended up really messy.)

after we had figured out that the numbers didn't add up, JJ asked for her quarters back - we were leaving nothing.

so i get up to try and find a manager and bump into 'R' and ask to speak to a manager. he heads off to find a manager.

a few minutes later, the manager shows up and JJ and i explain (very calmly and patiently) that we can't figure out how 'R' arrived at that total, showing him the napkin with my calculations. he takes the check and my napkin and tells us that 'R' was having a problem ringing it up and that he should have found him (the manager) to ask for help. he returns a few minutes later with a bill for $25.16. exactly what JJ & i both calculated. he laments that 'R' isn't the sharpest person and how people these days can't even handle remedial math. he then relates how his daughter came home and told him that she needed a $150 calculator.

uhhh...if you are referring to the TI-83 or TI-85, neither of those is over $100, but nevermind.

as the total is correct, i give him my card and he walks off. a few minutes later, i see him walk towards the entrance and a few seconds later 'R' returns with the receipt and my card saying something that i guess was an apology and that we were all set and then promptly walks off. JJ & i look at each other slightly bewildered and i say that i think he said we were all set and let's go. we grab our jackets and bolt. on our way out, the manager says something about 'R' needing some remedial math skills, we nod and head out. it's now ~910pm.

we laugh about it as we walk to my car and we both agree that had 'R' just given us a PRINTED check with the correct total (like the manager did), i would have paid it without batting an eye. but because we were given a handwritten total on our original check, we looked a lot more carefully and then questioned the difference. both of us know that 20 cents isn't much, but it was the principle. 'R' fucked up and we caught him.

so that ended our dining experience at friday's. but not my evening.

after dropping JJ at home, i decided that i should put gas into my car even tho i was at a 1/2 tank - my commute usually works out in a way that if i put gas in on saturday or sunday, i won't need to until the following weekend when i have more time to remember that i need gas. since going on vaca, my fill up schedule has been a little screwed up and i was late(r) to work one morning because i forgot to get gas on the way home the night before.

so i stopped by the irving on the way home (home of the cheap gas in the area, altho the sunocco was cheaper tonight) to top off my tank, which should put me back into my regular feed my car routine.

so, as i pulled in, some asshole was in my way, so i slowed and he moved to avoid me, but i could see he wasn't pleased that i had turned into his way. what didn't help this asshole was he didn't have his lights on, so i didn't really see him until i had turned. i gave him a 'what the fuck' look and pulled into a pump. as i got out of my car, i could hear him yell something at me as he drove past and i just shook my head and marveled at how in the last 30 seconds, i watched someone fuck up 3 times.

the first being driving w/o his headlights on.
the second being taking an illegal left out of the exit he used.
the third being blowing thru a red light, with the car that had the green starting to move into the intersection that he was blowing thru.

what a fucking idiot. learn to drive you fucking idiot. i think he had to act tougher than he was because he had a friend in the car with him who was egging him on. so to him, i also say fuck you.

the rest of my drive home was uneventful. and here i am now sitting watching the 8th inning of the red sox game. it's looking like they may win, but the game isn't over. i'll finish the game in bed.

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fun fun fun

had a good weekend all things considered. actually, looking back, it wasn't bad at all.

i was able to get my haircut (snuck in an appt w/my usual stylist...yes, molius has a hair stylist)

closed out my safe deposit box in my former town of residence (prompted by FLAB's decision to charge me money for it)

didn't get paged this weekend by Train Wreck, altho apparently some nurse paged the pager and never received any response. funny that, the pager never went off for me, so what pager were they paging? besides, i bought a brand new battery for our pager when i saw that it was running low, just to make sure that i didn't miss a page. but i have got to love DH's attitude.

D: did you get paged?

Mol: nope. bought a new battery, but no pages.

D: ok, thanks.

and talk about your timing - i started writing about not being paged and DH comes over to ask me about it. heh.

so, after getting my haircut, i meandered back, but never stayed any place where i couldn't get back home pretty quickly if i did get paged. fortunately, we have 60 mins to respond to a page, so if it takes even longer to actually deal with the issue, that's fine, but as long as we respond in an hour, we are good. no page, no response by me :-)

just submitted my hours for having the pager last week. the next time i get it, i'll get the entire weeks worth of pager money rather than broken into 2 separate payments.

went out to dinner with M & F. we F wanted steak, but Outback had a 60-70 min wait, so we ended up trying a place in Bedford called Lemon Tree. wasnt' bad, altho M & i grossly misjudged portions on the sushi we ordered. we thought it was going to be sushi (fish on rice balls) but instead it was sashimi (just pieces of fish). now, the fish was pretty good, and it was the best octopus we've had (not overcooked and rubbery like most places seem to do it). plus the fish was fresh, and M didn't find the mackerel as strong as it usually it. she doesn't care for it too much, but found this to be better than most. (mackerel has a strong fishy flavor, and is stronger the less fresh it is, but this time it wasn't as strong)

stopped by Marshall's afterwards. i was suprised to see they had suits in my size (43R) as i rarely see my size. in the past i've generally gone with a 42L or 44R, but when i got a new jacket a little while ago, we found the 43R was the best fit for me. both suits weren't bad, but a little pricey. plus i don't really need one at this very moment, so i passed.

it was a nice evening all around.

sunday i slept later than i have in a long time which was nice, moreso because i didn't get paged by Train Wreck. got the paper. M & i went to lunch at Joe's, which was a rather lackluster experience. we split the burger, and wanted a salad rather than fries (trying to address
that sticky-outy-tummy syndrome) and waitress looked at us as tho we had 5 heads. our soda was pretty much flat, and we weren't even offered a basket of bread to nibble on while we waited. after 20 or so minutes, both of us are starting to be more than mildly annoyed, watching the tip percentage drop like a stone. finally, after 25-30 minutes, our waitress comes over with our buffalo tenders and asks if it is alright if she brings our burgers out at the same time. (yes as
we were hungry and very annoyed at this point) the saving grace of the meal (not much of one given our entire experience there) was that our burger was cut in half and we each had the requested salad on our plates. so, that was nice. we had been figuring that we'd get everything on a plate and we'd have to divide it up, plus ask for a second plate, but they did it for us. so that was the only real saving grace of the meal.

the burger was ok, the salad was heavy on the iceberg, and the buffalo tenders were lacking any real flavor. they were also pretty cool, but that was more because we ate our burger first, so they sat for a little while, but even so, there was next to no zing, no flavor. most disapointing.

bought some maple syrup at TJMaxx afterwards (i only buy the real stuff, none of this corn syrup based maple syrup.) cost me nothing as i used a gift card i got a long time ago, so that made it even better. and it was produced in vermont too, so i won't be disowned by a friend of the family were she to find out i bought canadian based maple syrup.

spun thru chez target, picked up exciting napkins and magnetic picture frames for the few pictures on my fridge which have started to curl (which has been driving me nuts of late) so they are all now flat and i am happy.

simple dinner of tomato spinach soup (homemade - trader joe's veggie stock works wonderfully for this) and grilled cheese w/tomato.

new simpsons was above average i thought, altho the ending was rather weak and abrupt. that unfortunately seems to be the trend of late. i liked the beginning when they got back home after taking a drive and bart had lisa open the envelope he gave her at the beinning which had a drawing of homer stuck under the garage door, and of course that's exactly what was going on. pretty funny.

not much else going on these days. my car is no longer rejected as i got that taken care of this morning on the way into work. it failed the emissions test, so i had that fixed last month. that only took a few mins and it came out with a spiffy '2' sticker. fortunately, the re-inspection only take a few mins as they are just checking to make sure whatever failed was fixed. all the safety stuff passed with flying colors (colours?) last month which is why i have a '2' rather than a '3', but that's ok. i got it done inside the 60 days required and now i can forget about it for a year. or until the next problem arises that will cause it to fail. i'm shooting for an in/out/pass next year. this is 2 years in a row it failed, so it might be nice if it passes next time.

oh well. things are quiet at work right now, but that will change pretty quickly, so i should get back to work.

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