Pop: On Eating Out

I don't know if the Great Depression traumatized my dad or just had a tremendous impact on his views about money and the way he spends it. But whatever it was, he turned out to be an extremely frugal guy. Not only is he financially frugal but he is compulsively living in a world of the:
small, modest, used, simple, free, recycled, inexpensive, few, worn and patched. For example I can hardly get him to change his socks because he has decided that washing them wears them out faster requiring an eventual purchase(I won't get onto the topic of his underwear). A small glass for his drink. A small bowl for his cereal. A small amount of cereal in the bowl. A small amount of milk on the cereal. And when he is still hungry after eating the small bowl of cereal he will pour another small amount of cereal and eat again from his small bowl with a small amount of milk and drink from his small glass of water. So on and so on and so on. Thus when we announce that we are all going out to a restaurant to eat he receives the news with very mixed emotions. Food, yeah! Spending the extra money to eat out, ugh! Now as frugal as he is he is still a fare minded guy and wants to pay his own way. So before we walk out the door, with a strained look on his face, he will pull his wallet from his back pocket, carefully examining its contents making sure he has enough on hand (we actually sneak bills into his wallet so he feels that he has his own spending money).

From the moment the food arrives he starts in with, "How much do I owe you?" To ease his pain we say, "A buck, pop." Followed by, "Are you sure that is enough?" We have learned that once he pays his dollar it is best to leave the George Washington sitting on the table so that when he asks 5 to 10 times more about payment all we have to do is tap the dollar bill and say, "See pop you've already paid."