Captain Tip?

We have made Valentine's Day a family affair. It's a tradition we started several years ago. The boys are very well behaved in restaurants, and Chinese food is one of their favorites. Besides, all the good babysitters are booked up weeks in advance.

Tonight we went out to a small local restaurant in our neighborhood. We have eaten there many times before. In fact, we usually order the same meal--won ton soup, a raw tuna appetizer, and walnut shrimp and orange chicken entrees to share. And tonight was no exception

Except for the bill. When it arrived, we noticed TWO lines for the tip: the regular tip and the "captain tip".

WTF is a captain tip? I'm sure it's a legitimate entity, but only in the fanciest of restaurants. And this place isn't fancy. It's a very nice, but hardly upscale! They don't even have a toothpick dispenser.

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Anyway, this restaurant shares real estate with a tanning salon, a veternarian, and a grocery store. There's also an oil change place and Mickey D's at the other end of the parking lot. This is hardly the high rent district. They're building a WalMart Neighborhood Market across the street.

Q just left one tip. And it was a pretty decent one considering that the waiter didn't bring us plates for our appetizers. We ended up using the saucers from our soup bowls. The place was busy, sure, but our waiter was somewhat scarce. They were even slow bringing the check. We had to ask for it.

And when we finally got the check, there were NO fortune cookies! I know they were trying to turn our table as quickly as possible, but no fortune cookies? NO fortune cookies!?!?!? You can't have a Chinese dinner without fortune cookies!!!!!

Anyway, this whole idea of the captain tip has me perplexed, if not offended. To me, this is just someone's brazen attempt to fatten up the tip pool.

Or maybe they want to take the tip jar to a new level. Oh yeah...the tip jar. This place has one of those too. The lady who rings up your takeout order and hands you the food bag has to get in the racket as well!

In any case, I find the captain tip to be a farce since there seems to be no captain involved. So I will be leaving that line blank...unless my dinner is served by Kirk, Picard, Hook, Ahab, Steubing, or Rogers. Even Captain Underpants will get a buck or two if he keeps the water glasses full.