Math Olympics

When I go out, unless I really know you, or we work together, I tend to be a fan of separate checks. I think it's a great idea, and yes, it may be a little bit of a pain for the waitress, but the lack of headaches is worth it.

Case in point. Last weekend, I HAD TO get out of the house, and my roommate was headed to Hooters with some friends to watch the UFC fight. That seemed like an excellent excuse. My roommate, however, is a couple of years younger than me, and by extension, so are his friends.

The night went very well, and when it came time to pay up, I was a champ, having to only close out my check. The other 6, however had some issues. For some reason, they couldn't get the math to come out correct for the check, and so they kept coming up short (actually, I will hand it to my roommate, since he is astute in these matters). Add to this the fact that they apparently were unfamiliar with how tax worked, and the fact that our group size automatically incurred an 18% gratuity due to size, and it was a recipe for hot wings disaster.

Being the brains in the is operation, I stepped in and tried to help them. First I decided that I would use the handy app on my phone to calculate exactly what each person owed from the bill. This would have worked well, except for two things. First, one girl was upset because her amount came out to much more than the rest. She seemed to be unable to grasp that she had ordered a $11 drink, thus starting her subtotal higher, and entitling her to a greater percentage of tax and tip. Second, the math didn't work out.

Due to her protests, and the group willing to just split tip and tax evenly, I looked at the math another way. And then I saw what was wrong.

One of the individuals took off right after the fight. I think right after their bill arrived. HE left money on the table. Apparently, he not only had NO understanding of what tax and tip were (because he left no money for it), but I believe he was a few cents short (having left only bills) on his part of the subtotal.

I would like to hope that they learn from this mistake. However, I will still get a separate check.