“I fucking hate niggers!” a male voice screams. “I fucking hate them!”

I leap out of my chair and run to the window. My first thought is some black guy walking down the street’s being harassed by a wacko cracker. But when I look down at the street there’s not an African-American in sight.

“I fucking hate them!” the voice cries out again, drawing my eyes to a rusted out shitbucket waiting to make right turn onto the street in front of my house. I can’t see the driver, but the guy on the passenger side of the car has his arm is hanging out the window with a lit cigarette in his hand. I can hear him laughing.

One of the things I’ve been trying to do to exercise my cerebral cortex is memorizing license plates. As I’m driving down the highway I’ll pick out three cars, deposit the numbers and letters into my brain and note the make and model of the car. Then when I get home I see if I can remember them all by writing them down. So far I can always remember two of the cars. But there’s always one where I can only recall a partial plate. I have to work harder.

I look at the offending car’s license plate. But before my eyes can focus the car screeches away. Damn.

But the again, what could I have done if I had gotten the plate number? Call the cops? Maybe they could bust them for disturbing the peace. But then again maybe not. I’m sure they have more pressing things to worry about then some idiot spouting off vituperative nonsense. But I’d like to see that jerk try pulling that shit in Harlem.

I sit back in my chair and resume typing, saddened that a little bit of the world’s darkness did a drive by in my neighborhood.

“How about ’inoteca?” Lana asks. I’ve eaten there several times. The food’s very good.

“I’m game.”

But when we get to ‘inoteca the line’s out the door and the place is packed to the rafters. So we go in and ask the hostess the wait time for a table.

“About an hour,” the hostess replies winsomely.

Lana and I look at each other. “That’s a long time,” I say. “That French restaurant we passed looked nice. Why don’t check it out?”

So Lana and I walk over to Epicerie Cafe Charbon on Orchard Street. After figuring out where the front door’s located we walk inside. Just like ‘inoteca the restaurant’s crowded, very noisy and there’s no room at the bar to enjoy a leisurely drink. The waiters also look completely stressed out.

“Is this place too loud for you?” Lana asks. She knows I have trouble hearing in nosiy environments. I don’t know what the condition’s called, but when I’m in a room full of people talking loudly I have to strain to listen to the person sitting opposite me but can hear a conversation on the other side of the room with perfect clarity. I should have been a spy.

“I’ll manage,” I say. “Why don’t you ask what the wait time is?” Call me a piggy but I’ve found it’s always better to let the pretty girl talk to the hostess.

Lana walks over to a thin waiter clad in black and starts talking to him. I can’t hear what they’re saying but the look on the server’s face is diffident and arrogant.

Now most people can’t tell when Lana’s aggravated. As a trained analyst she’s pretty good at maintaining a therapeutic poker face. But since I’ve known her for ten years I can pick up on the subtle signs that she’s pissed.

“What an asshole,” Lana says when she comes back to me. “He said, ‘What?’ and looked at me like I was stupid.”

Now Lana and I are both veterans of the restaurant industry. We know the deal. Unlike so many pushy Yuppies who “want what they want and want it now” we understand we’ll have to wait and the waiters are stressed. But I’m angered that this server was rude to my date. Now you might think I’m being a hypocrite here but I was almost never mean to a customer that didn’t deserve it. Lana didn’t deserve it.

“I’m going to ask another server what’s up,” Lana says. “I’ll be back.”

While Lana’s searching for a more accommodating server I edge closer to the waiter who was nasty to her. He’s a handsome fellow with thick black hair and an arrogant mien. Since I’m taller and outweigh him by fifty pounds I idly think about stuffing him into a wastepaper basket. But with my luck he’d be a black belt in Savate and I’d end up spending the night cooling my heels in The Tombs.

Frenchie’s talking in his native tongue to another server. I don’t speak French but I can pick up on the tone – exasperated, angry and haughty. I like French people as a rule. Their language is lovely, their women are beautiful and their food’s outstanding. But this guy pissed me off. I play with the idea of telling him the only reason his restaurant’s not serving sauerbraten and wiener schnitzel is because the good ‘ol USA bailed out his country not once but twice. But that’d be mean and sort of untrue. The Resistance fought valiantly.

“Oh my God,” Lana says, sidling up to me. “I talked to another server and the manager. They we’re both assholes.”

“Did they tell you how long the wait was?”

“They wouldn’t even give me the time of day.”

“Let’s get out of here,” I say, feeling my temper rise. “Fuck this place.”

Lana and walk back to ‘inoteca and put our name on the list. “Check back with us in half an hour,” the hostess says. “We might have something open by then.”

I look at the clamorous dining room and ask the hostess if it’s possible to get a table downstairs where it’s quieter. She doesn’t promise anything but she says she’ll try.

“That’s okay,” I say. “We’ll take a table anywhere. We’ll be back in half an hour.”

When we get outside Lana says, “My sugar levels are crashing. Let’s find a place where we can get a drink and something to nibble on.” So we walk into Paladar on Ludlow, score two seats at the bar and order margaritas and guacamole.

“Man,” Lana says. “After that place I need a drink.”

“Amen to that.”

“Those waiters at that café were so rude,” Lana says angrily. “I can’t believe they were such tools.”

“Whatcha gonna do?” I ask. “They were probably operating on their last nerve.”

I was once a waiter and now I’m a customer. I go out to eat a lot and both Lana and I have boatloads of sympathy for servers and tip generously. But the reason the staff at Epicerie Cafe Charbon pissed us off was because we acted like perfectly reasonable customers and they still treated us like shit. If we had been demanding and pushy I could understand, but we weren’t. My diagnosis is that the restaurant was understaffed, the waiters were stressed and the manager was an amateur. Oh well.

“Hey, look at the time,” I say, looking at my watch. “We’ve got to go.’’

Lana and I down our drinks, pay the tab and walk back to ‘inoteca. When we get there the hostess takes us downstairs and gives us a quiet table next to the bathroom. Now some people would be aggravated getting seated next to the can but not us.

“This is much better,” I say, looking at the menu. “Now I can actually hear what you’re saying.”

When our waiter comes to the table he’s pleasant and enthusiastic about the menu. Since ‘inoteca’s a “small plate” kind of place we follow the server’s recommendations and order the market winter lettuce with crispy capers dressed with an anchovy herb vinaigrette, the verdure misti, polpette, a prosciutto, marzolino, rucola and lemon oil panini and two glasses of wine. The food and service is excellent. After experiencing the dysfunction at Epicerie Cafe Charbon it’s nice to be in a restaurant where they know what they’re doing. The difference is like night and day.

After we finish Lana and I walk back into the cold night air. The streets are still filled with snow and the party girls in their high heels and miniskirts are out in full force.

“Is it just me,” I say, looking at a leggy blonde walking ahead of us. “But is her ass hanging out?”

“It sure is,” Lana says. “She must be freezing.”

As we walk up Orchard Street we pass by Epicerie Cafe Charbon again. As I look through the window I can see the restaurant’s still packed and Frenchie’s walking around like he’s the male version of the Marianne. But I know he’s not representative of all French people. I once met a rough, tough French solider who could turn that waiter into scrambled oeufs . France is the land of poetry, Catherine Deneuve, great food and kick ass action flicks. Vive la France.

“You think we should give Epicerie another try?” Lana asks. “Maybe we caught them on a bad night.”

Having been a server I believe in giving restaurants a second chance. Every waiter, including myself, has had his or her bad days. But I can’t get Frenchie’s smug face out of my head.

“Probably not,” I say.

1. Hey Waiter! Just how much extra do you really expect? - Well Dave, unless you’ve been living under a rock since the Eisenhower administration, the standard gratuity for a waiter is between fifteen and twenty percent.

2. Do you need change? – I’m in agreement with Dave on this one. Let’s say you’re a waiter and a customer gives you a fifty-dollar bill to pay a forty-dollar check. A server should never ask if you want change. You should just bring the ten back to the table – broken down into convenient tipping denominations like a five and five ones. To do otherwise is called “begging for change” which is unseemly and unprofessional. Even if the customer gives you twenty bucks on a $19.53 bill - you bring them change. But let’s say you hand a waiter a 100-dollar bill on a 95-dollar check and say, “Keep the change.” That’s a 5.2 percent tip Diamond Jim! So if the waiter brings your change anyway that’s waiterspeak for “Your tip sucks.”

3. And you, my dear bartender, who cracked open a $4 beer bottle, and handed me back my change entirely in a stack of one-dollar notes. Very subtle. As though the sheer bulk of that paper would deter me from putting it back in my wallet, and, defeated, I’d simply leave it there for you like a burnt offering on your sticky altar

After this article, something tells me Dave’s going to have trouble ever “catching a bartender’s eye” ever again. And what kind of bar are you going to where they tip only in ones? Probably a strip club. And yes, the bar tops in those places can get very sticky. Now if you’re just grabbing a beer at your local pub a dollar per drink is an acceptable gratuity. But if you warm that barstool for three hours and swill 100 dollars worth of booze the bartender’s looking for 15 to 20 percent.

4. As much as I think you’re pleasing to look at, and you do magical things with frothy milk, I just don’t see your services commanding a 70-plus percent premium over the market rate for my breakfast.

Even a barista’s not going to tip another barista 70 percent for breakfast. As a former waiter my default tip is 20 percent. Twenty-five if the service is outstanding. Some servers will tip heavier. But 70 percent? Unless I’m high as kite and the waitress is offering me a blowjob, no way. And having worked as a barista in Portland, Oregon I can tell you that “doing magical things with frothy milk” is a lot harder than it looks. Besides, baristas often don’t keep all the money customers stuff into that tip jar. Depending on the establishment, how those gratuities get divvied up can result is a byzantine formulation that would make an account stroke out. And yes Dave, some of those baristas are cute pieces of eye candy. But just because you have a snowball’s chance in hell of scoring with one of them doesn’t mean you should punish them with a bad tip.

5. “…parties of six or more will be charged a 20 percent gratuity.” Because there’s simply no way that six adults can gauge the service of a meal (one of hundreds in their lives)

As I will examine in my upcoming book Keep the Change, service quality has very little do with the gratuities customers leave. So that whole “gauging the service” thing is bullshit. How many restaurant customers out there say, “I’m leaving you a bad tip because your service sucked?” Most people don’t have the balls. How a customer tips is often a diagnostic indicator of their personality. I’d love to run a personality inventory on you Dave. The results could be very interesting.

And I’ve explained ad nauseam on this blog why “auto-grats” are slapped on to parties of six or more. Large parties eat slower than tables with two for four customers. The way waiters and restaurants make their money is by “turning and burning” tables. I can make a lot more money serving several two-tops that take 1.5 hours to eat than getting my section clogged up with an eight-top that lingers over coffee until the busboys start swabbing the floors with bleach. (That’s restaurant speak for, “It’s time for you to go.”) And if you’ve tied up my section the entire night and leave me a bad tip? Well then I’ve worked for nothing. Auto-grats are designed to protect waiters from cheap tippers like you, Dave.

6. Yes, I know you’re all underpaid. But guess what? So am I. When I get $500 for an article that I think is worth $1,000, you won’t see me e-mail the editor, saying, “Just so you know, service isn’t included.” Do I ask you to come into my workplace and supplement my meager income? No, I don’t.

Well Dave, judging from this piece of flotsam you wrote it’s entirely possible your articles aren’t worth $1000.

Waiters in New York State are paid $4.65 an hour. That’s what’s called the “tip allowance.” A restaurant owner is exempt from paying the full minimum wage of $7.25 an hour because the expectation is tips will bring a server’s income to or above the minimum wage. (If a waiter’s tips do not result in earning $7.25 an hour the owner’s supposed to make up the difference. But there’s as much chance of that happening as a mystical being exchanging legal tender for a tooth left under my pillow.) Simply put, waiters and other service personnel depend on tips to survive. Is that fair? Who knows? But Dave, if you have an idea how to change an economic reality that’s been operating in this country since the 1890’s let me know. And the last time I checked, no one can survive in the Big Apple on $4.65 an hour. When I was a waiter many customers told me, “If you don’t like the money you’re making get another job.” Well, that argument cuts both ways Dave. If you don’t like the money your editors are paying you then maybe you should consider another line of work.

7. Better to just slap us with a perfunctory tax and screw up our orders anyway. Once that tip is locked in, who cares if the fish is cold?

Restaurant owners care, that’s who. Serving cold fish is a bad way to ensure repeat customers and a good way to go out of business. And if customers stop coming to a restaurant because of shoddy food or bad service, neither the owners nor the waiters will make money. Oh sure, you’ll get servers who don’t give a damn once the tip is locked in because they’re lazy jerks. But sometimes we’ll be slow with our service because the table’s acting like a bunch of idiots.

8. Sure, you’re in the service industry. But doesn’t that mean that my gratuity should be a reward for better service, or at least an incentive?

Sure, servers are incentivized by money. But any waiter will tell you that they’ve given customers great service and gotten bad tips and given poor service and gotten great tips. At first glance there’s no rhyme of reason as to why customers tip or don’t. As I said above, service quality has very little to do with tipping. Shocker!

9. Oh, sure, I’m cheap – No shit, Dave.

10. But not as cheap as your boss, apparently, who figures he can pay you the minimum wage of $4.65 for servers, and the customer will just pick up the rest of your living expenses.

See the explanation above.

11. Imagine if everyone did that. As you file out of the airplane, there’s the pilot, standing with his palm outstretched like a doorman who just let you into the hotel: “Hope you enjoyed your flight. Ahem, bit of a rough landing there, ahem. Not too easy to pull off, you know. Oh, why thank you, sir. You shouldn’t have.”

Bad example. Commercial airline pilots and air stewards have historically never accepted gratuities. (Though private jet pilots do occasionally get tipped.) But let me tell you Dave, I’d have slipped Captain “Sully” a crisp 100-dollar bill after saving my ass.

12. I could elect not to tip, but that is as much an option as refusing to pay your income tax because you’re a member of the Tea Party

Yes, some Tea Party activists advocate the abolition of income tax but don’t they want to switch over to a consumption tax? (Correct me if I’m wrong.) But no matter how you slice their ideas, someone’s paying taxes somewhere.

13. So here’s the deal: I’ll keep forking over my change, you keep smiling….

Yes! We’ll keep smiling like service-industry lawn jockeys, Dave. Thank you massah!

14. …. and we’ll both lobby for an increase in the minimum wage.

Can’t wait to see you storming Capitol Hill to agitate for change Dave! The minimum wage can go up and up but, as the laws stand now, tipped employees in most states are subject to a tip allowance and will continue to make below the minimum. Can we change that law? It’s possible. But what you pay in tips will just get folded into restaurant prices and you’ll end up shelling out the same amount of money anyway. And since water always seeks it’s own level, unscrupulous restaurateurs will siphon off that money, pay their waiters a pittance and waiting tables will turn from an honorable profession that puts food on the tables of 2 million American workers into another wage slave job. Is that what you want Dave?

15. David Sax, a journalist and the author of “Save the Deli” (Houghton Mifflin), lives in Park Slope and always tips 15 percent.

I haven’t read your book Dave and after reading this crap I probably won’t. I’m glad to hear you’re still tipping 15% no matter what. That’s cool. But something tells me the guys at the deli murmur,” Oh no, that guy!” when you walk in the door.

Stephen Dublanica, the author of Waiter Rant - Thanks for the Tip: Confessions of a Cynical Waiter (Harper Collins, 2008) lives in in New Jersey (Got a problem with that?) and his next book, Keep the Change, will be published in late 2010. And yes, he knows how to tip.