The great pizza bill debacle.

So, on Friday night of the conference, we went out for deep dish pizza, as I've already mentioned. There were ten of us -- Suzanne, me, Des, Alex, One Weird Mother, Plain Jane Mom, Steph (Suzanne's friend), Snigda (a young woman we met at the conference) and someone named Catherine (whom I'm not sure I'd recognize now, because it was a damn big table). Oh, and the woman in question, whom I shall call Prince Valiant, or Val for short. She looks more or less like this guy:

So we go to Gino's East, which used to be a Planet Hollywood, which is now covered in graffiti, every inch. They encourage it. It looked cool. Anyway, we order our pizza, and the larges are between about $20 and $28 each, and I believe we ordered three, which works out to about a third of a pizza per person. Most of us (but not all) also got drinks and salads. It was quite a long evening, and in the course of it, five more Blogher gals joined us at the far end of the table, and Snigda and Catherine left. I was at the end of the table nearest Plain Jane Mom, One Weird Mother, Steph, and Suzanne. When we finally finished eating and were ready to go, we sort out the bill. $200. Ouch! But it still amounted to only twenty bucks per person, which was the easiest way to split it. Tip was included so that was easy. We all tossed cash in, and Suzanne counted. We were WAY short. Something like $40 short. Well, Val said her portion was only $8 -- her math appears to be calculated on her no-drink, no-salad status and disregards tax and tip. She throws in her 8, but we're still short.

We then realize that the five people at the next table were added to our bill, even though they came in about an hour late. So we sorted that out more or less. We passed the money back and ended up at something like $17 a piece. But we were still short. Finally we realized that Snigda and Catherine had left. We all started asking whether they'd left money with anyone, and everyone (including Val) shook their heads. Then Des, guilelessly, said "Oh, wait! I saw Catherine give you money, Val!" "Oh yes," Val remembered suddenly. She handed over the money. We assumed that Snigda had just had a brain fart or didn't have the cash, but we knew we'd see her the next day, so Suzanne put the rest of the bill on her card, and we left.

But... (cue the Dunh Dunh Dunhhhhh music) when we ran into Snigda, she HAD given Val money! It's just that no-one saw it and was able to call Val out as Des had with Catherine's money.

I would just like to say, there's nothing wrong with finding yourself in a dinner situation where you were sort of pressured into spending more than you planned. And there's nothing wrong with wanting to split the bill exactly according to what you had (although it's more complicated). Certainly, no one wants to be the dummy who had salad when everyone else had black truffle steak and fruity drinks and be expected to split the bill evenly. To refuse to pay at least tax and tip -- well that's sketchy all by itself. But to have two people give you their portion of the money and not fess up and try to keep that? Well, that's just theft, and frickin' immoral. So if you see a girl with a Little Lord Fauntelroy hairdo and she wants to go out to dinner, say no and run!

By the way, this is a Count Mockula exclusive. There are benefits to being the blog no one reads. Suzanne and Des are far too polite and circumspect to post this.