PATTI AND THE RICH DUDE

I had mentioned before that when I worked for the bank, wages were quite low. In those days, bankers were supposed to somehow eat prestige. Banks often gave titles in lieu of a raise. I found titles had zero calories and less taste.

Titles are only useful at class reunions for bragging rights. Now it was a great job if you were supplementing your husbands income but when it was your only income, life could be bleak.

So I sometimes found myself working a second, part time job a couple of nights a week for spending money. Once I worked for a new car dealer and once as a cocktail waitress. Now of all the jobs I ever had, full or part time, the one I enjoyed the most was the latter. It was kind of like being at a party, sober, but paid well. There was fun, laughter and constant kidding around with a smidgen of harmless flirting.

The bar where I worked was part of a large hotel chain that had a very nice steak house restaurant. The lounge was mainly where people went for drinks while waiting for their reservation. There were the few local regulars who only came to drink the night away but they were seldom rowdy. The regulars were realtors, lawyers, a few black sheep from very wealthy families, and tourists who were staying at the hotel.

What I really liked was the mental sparring with the customers. Working there I am sure I increased my retort IQ on a nightly basis. The sharper your comeback, the bigger the tip. I can sometimes come up with a ho-hum quip today when under pressure, but with the constant give and take each night in those days, it became very easy and second nature. It is one of those "use it or lose it" things.

Of course, people who drink are easily amused so I shouldn’t have judged my skills by their reactions. Regardless, I had fun and could make in two nights what it took all week to earn at the bank. Rarely were these exchanges with the customers of a ribald nature for these were mostly people on dinner dates. We were just having fun.

One night, I had one of the 5 richest men in America walk into the lounge with a party of 4. I had met him earlier that year at a dinner during a golf tournament that I wrote about here.

That was when I had my episode with the arrogant golfer guy who set the bad behavior bar for the Tiger Woods types of today. While rich dude and I had shared a table and brief pleasantries at the tournament, I felt he in no way remembered me. I was right.

Roger the bartender, who was the boss's son, gave me a wink and said not to expect a tip from that table. The uber rich fellow was notoriously tight. I had dated RD's right hand man for a while and he often regaled me stories of the man's world class tightwad nature.

Marc, my former boyfriend, said that once they were inspecting a construction site for a new hotel, when the old fellow, jumped down from a six foot concrete wall to retrieve a half dozen unused concrete nails lying on the ground.

“Perfectly good nails,” he growled. “People have no respect for property.” Evidently, retrieving the nails outweighed the possibility of a broken leg for the elderly man.

So I wasn't expecting anything but maybe a pleasant exchange. Surprisingly, the old fellow had a really sharp mind and we kind of went toe to toe to the amusement of his companions. He would quip and I would counter.

There was the rare loud customer at the bar that night who was annoying everyone near him. Rich dude looked at me when I served their drinks and commented rather protectively, “Is he giving you any trouble?”

I replied, “No, I was tempted to give him a nasty look, but I saw he all ready owned one.”

Rich dude loved it, clapped his hands in delight. They prepared to leave for dinner and when I returned his change(which he pocketed), he slipped a couple of bills into my hand on the sly.

Thinking it was two bucks, I was still quite impressed for he was famous for leaving zero tip. After he left, I saw it was a twenty and a ten. The bar tab was only twenty dollars, he had tipped more than the bill. Stunned would put it mildly.

I would like to say that he became a regular and paid my way thru college but the next time I saw him at a function, he had no idea who I was. Some impressions just don't last. I've pretty much perfected that.

He has been gone for a long time now. Today if you listen to NPR, a lot of the programs you hear are paid for by his foundation. The foundation is also involved in many wonderful grants from the arts to human rights. He may have been frugal in business but he was quite the philanthropist in death and as far as I was concerned, he is locked in my memory banks as a witty man and one heck of a tipper.