DATE: Saturday, October 25, 1997            TAG: 9710250007

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B9   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: OPINION 

SOURCE: KERRY DOUGHERTY

                                            LENGTH:   62 lines

DINING OUT

I was filing my expense account the other day when I came upon some odd little digits on a receipt from a downtown restaurant - one of those chi-chi places where the food is loaded with adjectives and everything is topped with a dollop of creme fraiche.

At the bottom of my bill was a little message: ``Tip table provided for your convenience'' and what followed was a chart spelling out exactly how much I ought to leave behind to provide my waiter with his just desserts. The math was done for a 15, 20 or 25 percent tip. It reminded me of those annoying solicitations you get in the mail asking for a donation in the amount of: $1,000, $500, $250 or ``other,'' suggesting that any gift less than a couple of hundred bucks isn't worth mentioning.

This really frosted my donuts.

First, it's insulting. A tip chart implies that your average diner cannot compute a tip, or worse yet, is such a hopeless rube that he won't remember to leave one without a subtle reminder.

If I can calculate tips, anyone can. I'm pretty much a math illiterate, but four summers of hustling fried seafood combos and hushpuppies to sunburned Jersey Shore diners taught me to figure 15 percent of any sum while simultaneously hollering at busboys, smiling sweetly at customers and kicking loose lettuce leaves back under the table where they belong.

Twenty percent's even easier, although I resent the waitpersons' lobby for trying to convince us that it is the new base-level tip. It isn't. Fifteen percent is still a good tip, and most etiquette mavens agree that 20 percent should be left only for truly superior service.

Of course, the easiest tip of all to calculate would be 25 percent - if we were lame enough to think that any kind of service short of table dancing merited that largess. I see an insidious move here, via this tip chart, to make the insecure among us wonder if everyone else is lavishing 25 percent tips on their server, so perhaps we should do the same.

I've eaten in some fine restaurants, and been served by attentive and professional waiters, but never have I been tempted to leave a chunk of money equal to one-fourth of the cost of the meal as a reward for the guy who safely transported the food from the kitchen to my table.

In fact, I'm so irritated that the next time I eat in a restaurant that provides a tip chart I'm going to stiff any waiter who dares rattle off a list of adjective-rich ``specials'' without bothering to include the cost. (The implication being that if you have to ask you can't afford to eat there.)

Same goes for any waiter who stubbornly insists on driving the dessert cart over to my table after I've already declined.

What really cremes my fraiche about the bill I got is that the tips were calculated on the total cost of the meal, including sales tax. It's bad enough that the government is shaking me down for 10 percent of my lunch. Now the waitpersons' union - the AFL-MSG - has decided that a waiter is a civil servant who's entitled to a piece of the sales tax.

When I complained to the owner about the tip being calculated on the whole enchilada, he testily insisted I was talking nickels and dimes. Easy for him to say. Those are my nickels and dimes. And I'm tired of finding one more hand in my pocket, fishing around for them.

Here's a tip for restaurant owners: Fry the catfish, but quit trying to fry my wallet. MEMO: Ms. Dougherty is an editorial writer for The Virginian-Pilot.

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