Florida: Tips on tipping

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“Use All The Crayons!” Tip no. 122:   Extravagantly overtip friendly, underpaid waitresses who often spend long days and nights away from small children to bring you a hot meal. At night when they go home and are soaking their aching feet, they say prayers asking God to bless people like you.

I’ve been doing this for years. If the breakfast costs $10, I’ll often leave a $5 and never less than the standard 20 percent.

I honestly don’t know if those waitresses go home and say prayers on my behalf or head straight to the mini-mart to buy cigarettes and lottery tickets.

But I know I am blessed.

Let’s for now set aside the stuff about family, health, friends and Mario Lemieux owning the Pittsburgh Penguins and get straight to all the free shit.

Just last week we had 24 hours at The Breakers in Palm Beach. It’s fabulous.

It confuses me and flabbergasts the hell out of my family, but there are many travel industry professionals who regard having me as their guest as good for business.

In return, they expect me to write nice things about their venues in the hopes that my words are influential enough to lure more tourists through their landscaped gates.

Or maybe they’ve heard I’m a really great tipper.

I know this: I did nothing to diminish that reputation during my stay at The Breakers. I practically rained cash on the smiling staff.

I think it made them feel good. I know it did me.

I believe I have a karmic obligation to be an excessive tipper any time anyone bestows me with surprising kindness. 

Tipping the bellman a buck a bag is standard, as is a buck or two for anyone who holds the door for me without saying anything insulting about my tacky shirt. Five bucks for room service.

I dropped an extra $20 on Marlin, our Jamaican waiter, for sentimental reasons. The Breakers has a family Italian Restaurant that is near a supervised resort game room.

Marlin kept sliding the kids tokens from his stash, giving Val and I enough time to look soulfully into one another’s eyes and say, “And what did you say your name was again?”

And he was great. We had him sign and date the wine cork and it’s now in a basket with the others we take out to look at whenever we want to remember special meals.

We asked if he had kids. He did. Two. One is 6 and the other is 1 -- one week!

As we got up to leave, he assured me our hosts had already taken of him and I was under no further obligation. But I slid him an extra $20.

Looking back, I should have doubled that. He’d helped give us a special night and all I did was give him a twenty. Understanding you can never tip too much, I now realize I was a bit stingy.

I did a little better with our bungalow butler.

Having never heard of bungalow butlers, I figured I’d go my whole life without ever needing to tip one.

The Breakers changed that perception by giving us day use of one of their beach side bungalows. It features open-air private showers, food and drink amenities, and Crystal.

About 20 or so, she smilingly saw to our every need. She was great with the girls and made us feel right at home. We were there from 11 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven magical hours. 

So what do you tip a bungalow butler?

I had no idea. I decided to ask around. I asked the kid at the host station. He had no idea. He furrowed his brow for a bit and then like an unsure contestant on “The Price is Right” took a wild guess and said, “Gee . . . $40?”

Then I went and asked the people who know everything: The Breakers concierges. 

I stumped them. One guessed $10, the other $20.

I tried to think of why I, an often impoverished man of meager means, am so adamant about tipping. I think it goes back to one afternoon at Jack’s Bar on Pittsburgh’s South Side.

I remember ordering two $2 beers and handing out a $10. Despite being swamped, I remember the bartender being friendly and smiling, looking like there’s no where else she’d rather be.

I told her to keep the change.

She lit up like a Christmas tree.

“Man,” she said, “you’re awesome!”

I’m sure she doesn’t remember me or that tip, but I’ll never forget how good I felt walking away from the bar after her cheerful declaration.

She was right. At least when it comes to tipping, I am awesome.

So, yeah, Crystal got $40.

Related . . .

• Jump hugs with dangerous drunks

• “Use All The Crayons!” a 10-star review

Our secret week in Florida

(930 words)

I mistakenly thought I knew what was going to happen next after my wife lectured our 12-year-old about not posting anything on Facebook while we were away last week in sunny Florida.

She told her if she posts a picture of herself at the beach or with Mickey Mouse,  some lowlife would see we were away and break into our empty house and rob us.

Here’s what I thought she’d say to me:

“And you, my darling, do NOT write a word about this on your blog. I know given the vast reach of your readership it would certainly lead to criminal mischief.”

How much of this did she say? Not a word.

The tip-off should have been when I began her made-up harangue with her addressing me as “darling.”

So I spent the whole week criss-crossing Florida silently wondering if the criminal element of our 6th grader’s Facebook friends exceeds the number of crooks who read my blog.

Either way, the demographic comparison dismays.

Is Josie Facebook friends with Lindsay Lohan?

Does Lex Luthor read Eight Days To Amish?

Val’s failure to address me and this blog led to the immediate understanding she was engaging in spouse-speak. That’s where you say something aloud to your children hoping your numbskulled husband will get the real message.

Either way, there was no way after that I was going to blog about our trip, and that’s disappointing because it’s been a topical week.

We spent the first two nights at my father-in-law’s home in New Smyrna Beach. He’s a man who is honest, hard-working -- a man who truly appreciates the value of a buck. Heck, he appreciates the value of a penny.

Other than our love for his daughter, we have absolutely nothing in common.

It’s a source of frequent friction between Val and I so I could have spent the entire two days blogging about his miserly idiosyncrasies if he’d have only obliged me all that extra electricity.

So the best thing to come out of our two days with him was that Josie coined the subversive name for staying someplace where punishing cheapness reigns.

Just another night at The Grande Pa.

We went from there to Palm Beach where we enjoyed the antithesis of cheap. Yes, it was a night at The Breakers.

It was the most sumptuous 24 hours of my entire life, and I’m not saying that because we’d just departed The Grande Pa. If we’d have stayed another day they’d have had to summon the sheriff to evict us.

From there it was two nights with four three-day park-hopper passes at Disney World. This was the reason for the whole trip.

We hadn’t even told the girls we were going on vacation until two days before we yanked them out of school and we didn’t confirm Disney was part of the plans until we were within sight of the front gates.

I can’t predict what tumult the teenage years will hold, but if these two precious darlings remember even a fraction of the fun they had during the past seven days the recollections will soften some of the turbulence. 

This was a week of memorable family happiness.

Didn’t end at Disney either.

One of my old buddies is a big shot at The Peabody Hotel in Orlando. That’s the one where they make a big deal out of the ducks in the hotel lobby fountain. He got us a great deal there for one night.

After all that, the girls were underwhelmed to learn we were concluding our vacation with a night at a rustic Lake Wales area-cattle ranch.

It’s a night they’ll never forget.

Disney calls itself The Happiest Place on Earth.

Anyone who’s lucky enough to be friends with anyone in the Armington family might dispute that.

I’ve had some of the happiest times of my life at the Armington Ranch with my buddy George and his brothers. Happened again Sunday with George, Bob and his wife Diane.

And the whole time I’m having all this fun, I’m thinking, man, I wish I could spend an hour each morning sharing these adventures with the law-abiding citizens who read my blog.

But there’s no way I could do that, not after Val’s subtle message.

It would have been one of the all-time I-told-you-so’s if we’d have come home to a ransacked house with Val and I standing in a barren living room and her saying, “You just had to write about our trip to Florida on your stupid blog, didn’t you?”

So unless there’s a groundswell of readers who rise up dying to know my thoughts on sequestration, I’m going to spend the next few days blogging about our jolly traipse across The Sunshine State.

And here’s what I’m going to do next time we go away: I’m going to post right here the times we’re leaving and inform the world all the doors are unlocked and the fridges full of beer and lunchmeat.

See, this blog welcomes both crooks and saints.

I just want the crooks to know that they’re outnumbered by the saints and that the saints are welcome to house sit while we’re gone.

Regular readers already know we are of meager means.

The only precious things in the house when the precious people are not are the photo albums and things too personal to even afford a desperate Lindsay Lohan a cheap night at The Grande Pa.

Related . . .

When Facebook becomes Fakebook

Travel writer hits the road

Rodell returning to Lebo for book signing

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I’ve accepted an invitation to speak March 13 at one of western Pennsylvania’s most prestigious libraries.

For those of you unfamiliar with the art of self-promotion, let me explain.

First, I called this prestigious library, introduced myself, and told the lady about “Use All The Crayons!” my self-published book that as of right now is trailing Adolph Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” by just 1,498,637 sales points on Amazon.com!

I don’t know what I was expecting her to say, but here’s what she said: “No one here’s ever heard of you or your book.”

I’ll bet Hitler never had this problem.

I began to prattle on for so long that she said either out of pity or a desire to avoid starving to death while listening to my pathetic pleadings, sure, you can visit.

Yes!

“Oh,” she said, “is there anything else you can tell me about yourself that might help with promotion?”

Well, I’m grew up in Mt. Lebanon.

“You did!” exclaimed the events coordinator for Mt. Lebanon Public Library. “Why didn’t you say so?”

Why, indeed.

This might surprise people who live in Mt. Lebanon, but many of us who grew up in Mt. Lebanon and moved away from Mt. Lebanon have difficulty admitting we’ve ever even spent a night sightseeing in Mt. Lebanon.

This is because Mt. Lebanon is one of the wealthiest communities in western Pennsylvania. It has magnificent schools, enormous homes, great shopping and dining and for about eight years in the ‘90s many people could brag we were neighbors with Mario Lemieux.

How exclusive is it?

I remember seeing only four black students during my high school years -- and two of them were twins.

Admitting you’re from Mt. Lebanon is like admitting you’ve vacationed at someplace like the fabulous Breakers in Palm Beach, Florida, where, in fact, my family and I will be vacationing in about two weeks.

Yes, if you’re running short on envious resentments, please be sure to check out my blog the next two weeks because I have a bunch of outlandish fun lined up.

Admitting you’ve grown up in Mt. Lebanon makes people think of that great old line about those who were born on third base and grew up thinking they hit a triple.

I wasn’t born on third base. I was born in Greentree on Aiken Ave. My late father make the precarious decision to move his family to Mt. Lebanon when I was 6.

“”I wanted to make sure you kids had a great education and that’s why we moved to Mt. Lebanon.”

It was a real shame because you can lead a horse to water, but you can’t teach it algebra.

I was a terribly disruptive student. I played hookie, instigated food fights and may have been among the last Mt. Lebo students to ever receive corporal punishments for being a recidivist class clown. 

It would make a great story if I could say one of the junior high paddlings was administered along with the warning, “Keep acting like this, kid, and one day you’re going to wind up living someplace like Latrobe!”

But that didn’t happen.

I didn’t grow up feeling at all privileged because we were not at all privileged.

We lived in a very modest part of Mt. Lebanon. Getting by was always a struggle. My father was a humble optician, the guy paid meager amounts to keep your glasses from sliding down your nose.

But growing up there was fantastic. I had a wonderful childhood. So many great friends and memories.

I don’t remember ever once thinking, wow, that guy drives a nice car. I want to hang out with him!

Or, gadzooks, that girl has a really swell house. I’d like to date her!

I didn’t care about the size of her house. I was far more interested in the swell of her sweater.

I wonder if I’d have been as happy if I’d have grown up someplace less affluent.

And that’s where I fault my father.

Happiness is less about situation than it is about contrast. The old man should have let us slum it for a few years before moving us to Lebo.

Then we could have appreciated just how good we had it.

So I hope everyone in Mt. Lebanon turns out on March 13 at 7 p.m. to say hello.

I need lots of people there so that one day my happy little book will outsell an 87-year-old hate-filled manifesto written by one of history’s worst monsters.

That is mein kampf.

Related . . .

Mr. Fancy’s 30th high school reunion

Don’t ever say don’t ever change