I Dont Eat Lunch to Polish my Math Skills

Let me describe for you what has become a far too common situation.

The scene: Any fine dining establishment (doesnt really have to be "fine", I just like saying that)

The cast: A group of friends (5 or more) enjoying a meal and fellowship.

Now that you get a general feel for atmosphere I will move right on to the problem.

WHY DOESNT THE WAITER AUTOMATICALLY SPLIT THE FREAKIN CHECK???

If any of you are waiters or have been waiters please chime in here and put me in my place if I'm wrong but below is a list of reasons why the waiter should automatically split the check.

• YOU are serving ME. Why put a bad taste in my mouth right before I'm about to decide how much to tip you?



• It should be part of the service. If I wanted to do a restaurant related word problem I would go back to 2nd grade.



• People cant add. No matter how smart the 9 people at the table are, for whatever reason when forced to split the check on our own - we turn into 7 year olds who havent mastered simple addition.



• When people cant add - 1 of 2 things happens.

1) Somehow the advanced mathematicians that I mentioned above forget to add the tax in when separating the items and some poor shmuck at the end of the table gets stuck with an extra $50

2) The waiter gets screwed. Ive seen it happen plenty of times. The frustrated crowd rebels against the oppressive, no check splitting waiter by not leaving a tip.

Oh - and dont give me some sob story about "our computers wont do that". Computer programs allow people to navigate space, build skyscrapers and diagnose diseases. I'm pretty sure your computer can figure out how to correctly allocate my orange juice.