DEAR DAME EVELYN , I read your article on tipping waiters in S.F. I go to mostly low- to mid-range restaurants. What I get pissed off about is when I order take-out and the mid-range restaurants don't give me the exact change back. They don't even ask if they can keep the change. Yes, I know they are trying to make more than their raise in the minimum wage, but this isn't right!!!

Hilo

Dearissimo/a, Dame Evelyn thrills to the drama of your exclamation points!!! And she finds therein the answer to your problem of restaurant grabbiness at payment time: speaking up! Yes indeed, if some fancy-pants place tries to pocket some of your take-out change, you ask for it, firmly, clearly, and politely. Tipping is for table service, after all, not take-out, and while the tip jar displayed next to the cash register has become an urban totem of our times (when will this stop, incidentally? Dame Evelyn sees no limiting principle), this does not mean you have to play along. If you are shorted, you must point this out, and if you are treated to snide comments, dirty looks, or some such in return, you know at least you have found one restaurant you will not need to visit again. One truth about San Francisco I suspect most of us would agree on is that there is no lack of restaurants here, and it is likely that each of them would welcome your business. Dame Evelyn's (sorry!) tip: use your disaffection with one place to try another, and a third – and Dame Evelyn wouldn't be surprised to learn that these three and perhaps a few more are all on the same block, just a block or two from your home. In other words, walk the night.

Tipsily,
E.G.-S.

Is nightshade really poisonous, and is eggplant really nightshade, and what about potatoes?
Contact Evelyn Grosvenor-Smythe at dame.evelyn@comcast.net.