Cougar Love

We could all look like Barbie and Ken with a little more cougar love.

You learn a lot of interesting facts when you work with scientists, like I do.  For example, a recent article in PLOS ONE, a peer-reviewed, open-access journal from the Public Library of Science shows evidence that older women are producing taller, leaner offspring — two very favorable genetic traits.  At the same time, other studies have linked the incidence of autism and schizophrenia – two not-so-good traits — with aging fathers.  Now, I’m no super genius (despite what I tell my kids), but this data seems to lead to one obvious conclusion:  To create a superior human race, older women need to date younger men.

Yes, it’s true. Science doesn’t lie. It would appear that the perfection of Barbie and Ken is possible with a little more cougar love. As a woman in my forties, this is a scientific discovery that I can finally cheer about. I’m adding this to my file of legitimate excuses for bad behavior right next to the article that shows people who drink wine on a daily basis have a lower risk of developing Alzheimer’s Disease and the blurb from some woman’s magazine that said giving into cravings actually helps you to lose weight. Usually, I drink wine and eat cheesecake for my health, but I’ve decided to become more altruistic.  Starting today, I promise that I will flirt with young men for the good of all mankind!

Behold the future of the human race. Their children are superior to your children.

Behold the future of the human race. Their children will be superior to your children. (photo from http://www.celebitchy.com)

I have no experience robbing the cradle, so I will have to be trained on how to be a cougar.  The  term “cougar” would imply that the young men I will be dating are prey that will try to run away from me in fear when I approach. This is probably a pretty accurate assumption.  I don’t try to be scary, but my mom vibe is pretty strong. We all know men are intimidated by powerful women, and what’s more powerful than someone who can compel you to stand up straight and tuck your shirt in with a simple lift of her eyebrows?  I suppose if I want to date someone 20 years my junior, I will need to stop glaring every time he does something stupid and start laughing at fart jokes.

Even though I will want my younger man to be hunky, I don’t worry too much about my own looks, although I will probably need to stop dressing like a hobo and buy a pair of sexy shoes. In my book, this means anything that is not a flip flop. Once I have my alluring wardrobe in place, it will be important to learn how to get my prey to talk to me by tempting them with bait, such as the promise of a new Xbox or Playstation console (not a Wii.  Wii are for girls.), and then I will trap them by pretending to like beer, football, and video games.  It’s the trapping part that I’m unsure about, however. As much as I want to do my part to improve  the human race, I wouldn’t actually want my young stud to hang around for too long. My home has been a matriarchal society for too long, and I’m no longer willing to give up half my closet space to wet suits and surfboards or other non-essential items that aren’t nearly as important as the bridesmaid dress I wore in 2001, which could be really cute if I had it altered into a completely new dress.  Plus, I think the constant glaring would give me a headache.

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The Zombie Apocalypse in My Head

There are rules you should follow if you want to be a blogger:  Find a niche, keep your posts around 500 words, add pictures to keep it interesting, but the number one piece of advice for a successful blog is to post new content often. Once-a-week frequency is encouraged, more is even better.  As usual, I have obeyed some of the rules and ignored others.  Forgive me, bloggers. It’s been over three months since my last post.

I want to be successful. Really, I do, but posting once a week is an ambitious goal for someone who works two jobs. I also don’t have a niche, because this blog is really just an online diary for me to vent my opinions and frustrations, so that I don’t have to see my kids’ eyes glass over anymore.  Apparently my battles with dog poop and opinions of e-books aren’t that interesting to teenagers. I also think I might watch too much Walking Dead, because when my daughters’ eyes get unfocused, and they start to grunt their responses, I always promise myself that if they turn into zombies, I will put them down as quickly and humanely as possible.  Unfortunately, I don’t own a gun, sword, or crossbow.  I don’t know how easy it will be, but I am prepared to kill my zombie children with a dictionary, if necessary.

I don’t really feel bad about my sporadic posting considering I have an audience of about four people. I’m delighted to see, however, that it is an international group (Hello Great Britain and Germany! You guys rock!). Thanks to the magic of WordPress stats, I now know that toilet etiquette is a universal issue.  Maybe I should make that my niche.

The hardest thing about following the blogging rules, is that as much as I love to write and as ridiculous and cathartic as my topics may be to me, writing is still hard work.  Both of my jobs require editorial skills and attention to detail, so when I find myself with free time, I like to turn my brain off.  Even making basic decisions like what to have for dinner can feel taxing.  Hence, my current chicken nugget obsession.  Finger foods, it turns out, are equally satisfying to adults and children alike.  My brain is so tired most days that I can’t even play a decent game of Scrabble.  I have to relax with Spider Solitaire instead.  I play on medium, and I still lose half the time.

Mmmmm. This is my type of brain food! (Photo from streetanatomy.com)

Mmmmm. This is my type of brain food! (Photo from streetanatomy.com)

Despite my weary noodle, I am a writer, which means eventually my thoughts need to be put to paper or else they pile up in my head, eventually spilling out of me in whispers under my breath when I’m out in public. This can be a problem in elevators or other small rooms where people might feel trapped with the crazy women muttering about guns and crossbows.  I’ve gotten a few weird looks over the years, but usually I can easily calm people’s nerves by explaining that I’m not crazy — I’m a writer. For some reason, that seems to make sense to most people who then look at me with deep sympathy.  I’m pretty sure they still think I’m crazy, but my being a writer makes them more confident they can take me in a fist fight.

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May the New Year Bless You with Rainbow Colored Kittens

2013 is going to be a really good year. I know because I keep dreaming of rainbow cats.

Last night it was a big fluffy blue cat that looked like a cousin of the Cookie Monster.  Before that, it was a calico cat with a patchwork of yellow, green and orange fur that was beautiful and mesmerizing. In addition to being brightly colored, the kitties in my dreams were friendly and clever. They couldn’t talk, but they certainly understood everything that was said to them, and, more important,  they could high-five on command.  I wish I could have videotaped my subconscious, because these cats would have gone viral for sure!

Not exactly the cat in my dream, but close enough! Photo from http://frabz.com

Not exactly the cat in my dream, but close enough! Photo from http://frabz.com

By the time I was relaying my third rainbow cat dream to my youngest daughter, who was growing bored with my adorable feline imaginings (she’s a dog person), I knew that I needed to investigate the potential hidden meaning behind my colorful cat dreams.  It turns out, cats are very symbolic in dreams. According to the first dream dictionary website to appear in my Google search, they represent the feminine independent spirit.  In addition, rainbow colors can represent optimism or seeing things in a positive light.  This was all good news to me! First, it meant that the Muppet Movie was not a bad influence after all, and I could continue to watch and sing along with Kermit and the gang (and laugh at Fozzie Bear’s farting Whoopee cushion shoes) without any guilt. Second, after careful analysis, I decided that my colorful dreams were, indeed, an important message from my subconscious, and that message is YOU’RE AWESOME!  Thank you, subconscious, I needed to hear that. Now that my inner psyche has confirmed my status as a super cool human being, I can fearlessly  tackle all my resolutions for 2013.  This is the year that I let myself dream!

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Paper or Plastic

I don’t own an iPhone and probably never will. It’s not because I’m a technophobe. I just naturally resist when a company tries to dominate the world.  I admit I wouldn’t mind owning an iPad, though. It looks like a fun toy, especially if you made the mistake of booking a connecting flight through Chicago’s O’Hare International Airport and need some entertainment for your five-hour flight delay.  So far, I’ve been too cheap to upgrade my iPod to the jumbo version, so whenever I find myself with time on my hands, I frequently resort to a very old-fashioned habit of killing time:  I read a book.  A real book.  One printed on paper. Yes, they still exist.

I love books. When I say that, I don’t mean I just love reading. I mean I love the actual book. I love the cover, I love the feel of the paper, and, of course, I love the content. Much like live theater, a printed book is a collaboration of creative talent — from the author who wrote it, to the editor who refined it, to the designers who chose the fonts and layouts and created the cover — and it can be enjoyed on multiple levels.  The slick touch screens and splashy graphics of e-readers, such as the Nook, Kindle and the iPad, just can’t capture the sheer visceral pleasure of a new book.  That’s why in my house, saying you want a new e-Reader for the holidays is like saying the devil ain’t such a bad guy, and it could get your Christmas sock burned in effigy.

I’m not saying e-Readers are all bad. They serve a purpose, and clearly the publishers would love it if everyone would start paying traditional book prices for a product that costs them nothing to print, bind, ship or store in a warehouse, but when you weigh the pros and cons of e-books vs. print books, paper beats plastic every time. Here are a few reasons why you will never find a Nook in my house, but you will still find a library card in my wallet:

TOP TEN REASONS WHY PRINTED BOOKS ARE BETTER THAN E-BOOKS

1.  You can spill water on a paperback book and keep reading despite the damage.

2.  Amazon can’t delete a hardback book from your bookshelf after you buy it.

3.  You can dig up a printed book 100 years from now and the technology won’t be obsolete.

4.  Printed book collections look better on a bookshelf than e-book collections.

A printed book collection vs. an e-book collection.

5.  You look smart when you carry them (unless it’s Fifty Shades of Grey).

6.  They can be good conversation starters that get you lots of dates (particularly if its Fifty Shades of Grey)

7.  You can use them for other things, like improving your posture or fixing a wobbly chair.

8.  It’s more fun to kill a Sunday afternoon in Barnes & Noble than online at Amazon.com

9.  You can release a printed book into the wild when you’re done for others to enjoy.

10.  A first edition autographed copy of Stephen King’s The Shining is worth more than 10 iPads.

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They Don’t Teach Poop in College

My life at work. (The jokesters from Cyanide & Happiness consider this a “clean” cartoon.)

I work at a respected University that is nationally recognized as a top research institution and well-known for its medical school.  It’s difficult to get accepted into this University. In fact, my daughter was rejected by my place of employment for her inferior 4.0 grade-point average.  All of this is to say that I am surrounded by smart people.  Everyone around me either has a Ph.D. or is studying to get one, but apparently there are some things they just don’t teach you in college.

Bathroom etiquette, for example.  There are three available restrooms in the office space  where I work. All three are single-person bathrooms shared by both sexes.  The other day, I opened the door to the main restroom in the building hallway to be confronted by a horror so great it reminded me of my daughter’s diaper after she’d tried solid foods for the first time — only instead of  using a Diaper Genie to dispose of the waste, someone had stuck a firecracker in the diaper and tried to blow it to smithereens. I don’t exaggerate when I say that the toilet was covered in liquid feces as were the walls and floor.  It was as if someone’s ass had been a giant diarrhea-filled Super Soaker, and they had tried to blast their way out of the bathroom. Disgusted, I closed the door and thought to myself, “I am NOT cleaning that up!”

For the life of me, I don’t understand how a restroom at an institution of higher learning gets into that state in the first place.  You’d think that by the time people made it to college they would know how to use a toilet properly.  Judging by how many times I have to wipe other people’s urine from the seat before I can relieve myself, however, it is clear that toilet training has taken a backseat to the internet, PowerPoint presentations and social networking skills.  The Mad Pooper at my work may not know how to properly seat himself on the loo, but I’m sure he could take a picture of his mess, upload it to the internet using a smart phone, get 500,000 hits on Instagram and YouTube, and start a “boweling” fad in less time than it takes for him to digest his lunch.  I’d be more impressed if he could just put the toilet paper back where he got it and not drop it on the floor.

How to Use a Toilet 101 (photo by Dk pdx Elfin Slade)

The problem of people vandalizing the bathroom with their own excretions has become so prevalent at my work that I’m considering buying mini-targets to place in the toilet bowls to give people something to aim at. I might also post a few signs and leave some copies of “Pee is for the Potty” out for reading material.  Unfortunately, I think the best result I could hope for is a few sheepish looks, but the urine splatters will still be there for the next person to clean up.  The reason for this is because I suspect that most of the dribbles that I encounter come from germaphobes who envision an army of microscopic marauders lying in wait on the toilet’s surface. This battalion of bacteria apparently wants nothing more than to ambush some unsuspecting buttocks and lay waste to it with a hellacious rash. Rather than sit on the toilet, these nervous Nellies will squat on top of the toilet and let their pee land where it may. You can’t train a germaphobe to use the toilet correctly. Their fear will always get the better of them.  I think my best offensive plan might be to play into their fear. Rather than dropping hints about proper toilet etiquette, I should post signs with pictures of ugly microbes that warn them about the dangers of touching any surface in the bathroom — especially the doorknobs that let them in.  If I’m lucky, they’ll run away from the restrooms altogether and start peeing in the bushes outside.

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How To Be a F%&$@! Good Parent

There are many things I’ve screwed up in my life:  my high school physics project that required building a bridge out of balsa wood with little to no instructions; my car, which now has “character” much the way a fat girl has personality; and the painting of my bathroom, which I wanted to be sunny and bright, but instead ended up in a yellow so glowing you’d think you were gazing into the Arc of the Covenant whenever you open the bathroom door. Fortunately, the one thing I haven’t screwed up (yet) are my kids.  My eldest will be officially grown up in a couple of weeks, and I only have four more years of being able to boss around her younger sister.  I don’t know how, but I’ve managed to produce some pretty great offspring despite the fact that I frequently fail to meet the most basic standards of what many people would consider proper parenting.

For example, when my eldest daughter was about three years old, she stubbed her toe while playing in the backyard and yelled out “Shit!” while hopping around on one foot.  After it happened, I told a coworker the story, because a cursing three-year old is pretty dang funny.  He agreed then asked me if I had washed her mouth out with soap, and the question really surprised me. “No,” I replied.  “I thought it was an appropriate use of profanity.”

My daughter is now headed to college, and I honestly can’t remember if I’ve ever heard her swear since that day. I know she must, but, as far as I know, she continues to cuss appropriately, and I couldn’t be more pleased.  I believe all words – even the offensive ones – have a purpose and place in our language.  If used correctly, curse words can be mighty effective.  I’m sure my then-three-year-old daughter picked up her colorful vocabulary from me.  When you are in pain, a curse word offers more relief than a simple “Ow.”  Go ahead and try it:

Imagine your finger being slammed by a car door, then scream “Owwwwwwwiee!”  Now imagine it again, but this time, scream “Oowwwwww, MOTHER FUCKER!”  The pain doesn’t stop, but, you have to admit, the expression of that pain is ten times more satisfying.

I don’t believe in swearing randomly, however.  Having a potty mouth can make you seem uneducated and vulgar, and swearing a lot around kids is bad, because language is contagious.  If you swear a lot, then your kids will swear a lot, and then they will seem vulgar and uneducated.  That’s not a reputation you want to saddle on a second grader.  I once had a deeply religious friend who didn’t feel comfortable using the word God unless she was in church, lest it be in vain.  Consequently, I found myself frequently exclaiming “Oh my gosh” when I was surprised instead of “Oh my god.” It wasn’t intentional on my part, I just caught the habit from her.  These days, I live with teenagers, so now I say OMG as an exclamation (or O-M-G if something is really shocking).

No, I believe cuss words should be reserved for special occasions.  Like when you’re angry.  Over the years, my kids have become experts at tuning me out when I’m giving a lecture, but if I drop an F-bomb, they snap to attention right away.  Because when mama swears, you know she’s not F***ing around.

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I’d Rather Be Fat

You know how King Midas’s wish of turning everything to gold with a touch of his hand turned into a horrible nightmare? That’s how most diets seem to me — good in theory, bad in practice. The thing about diets is that to keep the weight off, you have to eat that way forever.  Maybe I could live to be 100 if I ate only grass and tofu starting tomorrow, but 60 years without a breadstick or pizza sounds like something Dante conjured up as torture for us sinners. In fact, I’m pretty sure Dante included a vegan diet as the 10th circle of hell in the Inferno, but his editor said 10 was too many, because people don’t like to scroll down that far.

I know plenty of people who have lost impressive amounts of weight on the Atkins Diet, the Flat Belly Diet, Weight Watchers and other programs, and I admire their commitment and success.  What I hate is when they then take a look at me and try to convince me how much better I would feel if I, too, joined their cult of deprivation and lost a few pounds.  I know what it’s like to be skinny, and now that I’m in my forties, I know what it’s like to be fat, and quite frankly it feels the same.  The only difference is I can now walk by a construction site without rolling my eyes or flipping the bird to some guy in a hard hat.  In fact, it’s taken me almost a decade to realize that the explosion of headlines about our country’s “obesity epidemic” were talking about me — a soda-drinking, carb-loving, exercise-hating embarrassment to America. Maybe my flabby arms and cellulite make me less attractive, but health-wise I’m doing just fine. Even though I’m overweight, I don’t have diabetes, heart problems, bad knees or back problems.  If I did, then I might be more motivated to swap the enjoyment of a perfectly crafted eggs Benedict for a cup of whole grain oats.  Until my bowels become irritable and my breathing asthmatic, however, I’m going to eat my doughnuts for breakfast and not feel guilty.

You don’t get these guns with exercise and salad!

I don’t have a lot of vices.  I’m basically honest, I don’t drink, I don’t smoke, I drive the speed limit, and I try really hard to be courteous and kind to others.  In other words, I’m really boring. The only thing that is interesting about me is my willingness to try outrageous fried food at the annual State Fair.  I’ll tell you right now, chocolate covered bacon is over-rated, but a deep-fried PB&J is pure genius.  I enjoy junk food. It’s my vice, and I’d rather be addicted to Diet Coke and be able to savor a meal in a restaurant than have to count calories and grill the waiter about every ingredient in a baked lasagna. If success is measured by happiness, then my high-fat, high-calorie diet full of butter, cream, sugar, salt and deliciousness is exactly what I need in my life.  I probably won’t live to be 100, but I’m sure to die with a smile on my face.

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Let the Audience Be the Judge

My oldest daughter came out to me when she was 15.  My first instinct was to scream “Nooooooooooo! Don’t you know how hard life will be for you?” but I restrained myself and merely asked in what I hoped was a non-judgmental way, “are you sure?” Her response was definite.  “Yes, mom. I want to be an actress.”

I imagine that admitting you are seriously considering acting as a career is a lot like admitting you are gay.  It is very, very difficult, because people will instantly judge you to be defective.  It’s not a profession that decent, hard-working, or practical people aspire to.  It’s much better to say you want to be an optometrist.  That’s a profession that everyone can respect, even people who don’t wear glasses.  Many aspiring thespians keep their acting ambitions secret, so they can avoid ridicule and bullying. Behind closed doors they may practice their Oscar speeches, but in public, they would never admit that every year they watch all four hours of the Academy Awards and  loved every song and dance routine involving Neil Patrick Harris.  If a few hints of acting ambitions do start to show — such as a love of Broadway show tunes or an obsession with good lighting — it is brushed off as an “experimental phase.”

If I’m going to be honest, I must admit there were signs that my daughter was born a performer. Although quiet in nature, her fashion sense has always screamed “Look at me!” Like most little girls, she liked anything that sparkled, and if it sparkled, was rainbow-colored, and could be paired with cowboy boots and a tutu, then it became her new favorite outfit. My daughter loves an audience, and she understood at a very young age that your appearance can garner a lot of attention (and this was before Lady GaGa was considered a role model). When a kindergarten teacher asks the class if anyone has any questions, and your five year old responds “Yes, how’s my hair?” you know that medical school is probably not in her future.

As my daughter got older and her friends put away the princess dresses, she continued to play dress up.  Any excuse to wear a costume to school — thespian club tryouts, spirit days, an exam in history — was seized, and she didn’t just dress up, she created characters and played them all day long.  On Halloween, when the normal girls were dressing up as flappers, french maids, and, my personal favorite, the sexy bumblebee, my daughter was grabbing her crotch and calling herself Jamal.

A sexy bumblebee.               My daughter as Jamal.

 

I’ve come to accept my daughter the actress, and should she ever win an Academy Award, I hope she will wear a rainbow sparkly dress to the Oscars.  Until then, I will keep supporting her ambitions, but I will leave it up to her to tell her grandparents they won’t be getting a discount on their glasses when she graduates college.

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Cats and Dogs and the Fate of the World

This morning at around 6:30 a.m., I decided I was a cat person.

I have both cats and dogs as pets, and I’ve always tried to avoid playing favorites, but an unseen hole in my plastic bag changed all that.  Picking up after dogs is a disgusting ritual that cat lovers don’t have to endure.  Don’t even mention the litter box, because there is no comparison. Scooping dried, sand-covered clumps of waste with a tiny shovel is not the same as squeezing a fresh pile of steaming shit into your hand with only a thin layer of plastic between your skin and the foul-smelling feces.  Or, as was the case at 6:30 this morning, no barrier between you and the reeking bacteria planet that Dog Almighty just created.  Never in my life have I had to scrape cat poop out from under my fingernail, which is why I can now say with 100% certainty that I favor my feline companions over man’s best friend.

Hey! Don’t throw that poop away! I meant to put it there!

Of course, it’s not my dog’s fault that I got a finger-full of crap this morning. In fact, she’d probably prefer that I left her droppings where she deposited them.  I’m sure it irritates the heck out of her having to leave the same message over and over again for the other dogs in the neighborhood because I keep erasing her poo-mail.  Although there are plenty of people who don’t pick up after their pets, I do. Mostly because I’m afraid of my neighbors. They leave hostile signs pinned to trees and yell things from their large pickup trucks whenever my dog gets into that familiar hunch-backed crouch near a public intersection.  The only way I would feel safe leaving my dog’s poo on the grass is if it were a moonless night, and she and I were dressed as ninjas. Stealth pooping isn’t practical, though, when you like to be in bed by 9:00 p.m.

Although I’m diligent about collecting and disposing of my dog’s excrement, I must admit, I sometimes wonder if it wouldn’t be better for the environment to just leave it be.  After all, in a few days it will be a shriveled, dried-up pile of manure that can help fertilize the grass.  However, when I pick it up with my grocery store plastic bag and throw it in a trashcan overflowing with other collected poos in plastic bags, I’m creating landfill fodder that will take hundreds of years for the earth to digest. So which is worse: destroying the planet with collected dog poop, or destroying the neighborhood with a mine field of dog bombs ready to ruin your best shoes?

I don’t have these kinds of dilemmas with my cat. In fact, I’ve decided I’m going to train my cat to walk on a leash so we can start getting some exercise together. Once I can take my cat jogging, I will finally have the perfect pet.  Hmmmmm. I wonder how my neighbors feel about hairballs on the grass.

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America’s Tipping Point

I got the stink eye yesterday from a coffee barista.  There may even have been a snide comment to go with it, but I’m a little hard of hearing in one ear, so I just smiled politely at the moving lips of the girl behind the Starbucks counter. Although I’m not sure what she said, the stink eye was unmistakable.  The reason for the glare was my selfish act of returning all of my change to my wallet instead of dropping some of it into the barren tip jar on the counter.

The expectation of tips in this country has always been a pet peeve of mine, and as a general rule, I don’t put money in tip jars. Like Mr. Pink said in “Reservoir Dogs,” I don’t believe in it. In fact, much the way the sale of lipstick can be a barometer of economic times, I think the decline of the American economy can be correlated to the increasing prevalence of tip jars.  When Starbucks’ tip jars first began overflowing, the economy was blowing its bubble, but the gum was still sugary and sweet. When the bagel shops and delis put out their tip jars, the gum was starting to go stale, and by the time I saw a tip jar at the drive-thru window of my local taco shop, that bubble had exploded, the gum was stuck in our hair, and no amount of peanut butter was going to get it out. Only a pair of scissors would solve that mess. The more tip-jar panhandling became normal and acceptable, the worse the economy got.  Therefore, I think I have a patriotic duty to help eliminate the cursed tip jars by being frugal and miserly. Skip the tip! Get America back on its feet!

Okay, I might put money in this tip jar (Photo from http://www.comedy.com).

Unfortunately, it’s going to take a lot more than a good picket line chant to change the tipping culture of this country, particularly when magazines and travel guides keep giving out ridiculous advice such as “tip 20% regardless of service.” I have better advice, and it’s much easier to remember, too:  Tip only what you can afford and only when you want to. I know, I know.  Brilliant, right?  It’s too brilliant, I’m afraid. People don’t trust simplicity these days, and then there’s the guilt factor.  What about all the poor minimum-wage workers whose employers can’t be bothered to pay a living wage? How will they survive without our non-tax-deductible contributions to their paychecks? Never mind that my hair stylist probably makes twice my office worker salary. Without her tips, she’d probably make the same as me, and I can assure you that my salary is not enough to pay the bills!

Still, if we want to help our country regain its health, we have to break it of its tipping addiction. People need to go back to working hard and earning their wages rather than expecting money for nothing. So, forget about percentages and job titles and follow these suggestions instead:

THE WORKING FOOL’S GUIDE TO PROPER TIPPING

Tip when someone does something for you that you don’t want to do yourself.

I always tip the pizza delivery person, even though many places now charge a delivery service fee on top of your food order (remind me to rant about that in another post).  I do this, because the delivery driver is doing me a favor and saving me the hassle of putting on shoes and leaving my house in search of sustenance.  I tip waitresses for the same reason.  If I eat at a sit-down restaurant, it’s because I want to relax and let someone else fetch my food and drink and clean up afterwards.

Don’t tip people for doing things you are happy to do yourself

Just because a guy with epaulets on his jacket opened a door for you or hailed a cab before you could do it yourself doesn’t mean you owe him a dollar.

Ignore the tip jars

It is not necessary to tip someone for just doing their job, particularly when that job takes only a few minutes to complete. Unless the tip jar is on a piano, and you’ve made a request for an obscure Barry Manilow tune, don’t let the guilt jar get to you.

Tip when someone has gone above and beyond the call of duty

If you have made a special request and the people helping you have been exceptionally friendly and helpful, then a tip would be a nice way of saying thank you. This does not mean you must tip a dollar for the complicated mocha latte you ordered off the menu. That fancy drink no doubt costs more than a regular coffee, so no extra service fee is necessary.

Tip to get what you want (also called a bribe)

Tipping the concierge or front-desk clerk at hotels is a good idea if you want a room upgrade or hard-to-get tickets or reservations.  These people have the means to help you, but their job description doesn’t always require it, so go ahead and give them an incentive. Otherwise, get on the internet and find your own tickets and upgrades.

Tip to preserve or create a relationship

I despise tipping hairdressers, because I pay so much for their services and frequently hate my hair cuts, but I continue to do so, because of the relationship.  Being a good tipper gets you better service and allows you to be more demanding when you don’t get exactly what you want.

Tip what you can afford

Back in the day, my mother used to tip $2.00 whenever we went out to eat, regardless of the bill. I asked her why she never tipped more, and she replied without shame that it was all that she could afford. I used to think she was being cheap.  I know now she was, in fact, being brave. By all means, if you can afford to tip 20% or more on a bill then go ahead and do so. Your waiter will be grateful. If you can’t, don’t worry about it.  After all, tips may be customary in our country, but as far as I know, they are not mandatory.

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