"What's that you're doing?" Jill asked Chuck.

"I'm signaling for the check," Chuck said. He was holding up the palm of one hand and waving around the index finger of the other.

"That's not the way you're supposed to signal for the check," Jill objected. "This is." She raised the index finger of her right hand and scribbled in the air from left to right. "This is the universal way to signal for the check," she said to Chuck.

"Wait a minute," I said to Jill. "I've never seen anyone else do that. In fact. this is the first time I've seen it at all. Just because it's the way you do it, you call it universal?"

"No. It is," Jill declared. "Why? You think it's the way Dad's doing it?"

"No, I don't," I said. "He looks like he has an itch on his palm and he's scratching it." Jill liked that description. "But you just look like you're scribbling in the air." Jill didn't like that one nearly as much.

"So how do you do it?" Jill wanted to know.

Actually, I hadn't even thought about that. Since I almost never pay the check. Usually someone else is doing it. And even on those rare occasions when I do pay, I can't recall ever signaling for it. I think I always ask for it, instead. But how would I signal for it if I had to? I couldn't signal the way Chuck does, now that I'd made fun of it. And I couldn't signal the way Jill does either, for the same reason. So what would I do?

I drew the outline of a check mark in the air. Since I'm left-handed, I drew it backwards, the way I make them.

"No way!" Jill declared disdainfully. "I've never seen anything like that. No one would have any idea what you're doing!"

I had to admit she was right. "You're right," I admitted sheepishly. "This is getting to be a lot like charades," I said. "And now it looks like none of us knows how to signal for a check."

Which was really quite surprising. Considering how often we eat in restaurants. A lot more often than the average person. And considering how bright we are. College graduate and all that sort of thing. So it's rather surprising that we can't agree on the proper way to signal for a check. Which everyone else knows how to do. All we can do is agree on how not to signal for one.

So there was Chuck. Jill and I were positive he was signaling the wrong way. But the waiter noticed anyway. And instead of wondering whether Chuck had some itch on his palm, as I would have done, this waiter assumed he wanted the check. Which was rather reassuring. And only goes to show what we've known all along. It's really not that much of a dilemma.

Because if you're seated at a table in a restaurant. At the end of the meal it's okay to wave your hands any way you want. Most waiters will assume you're signaling for your check. The context is the deciding factor.

January 1998
BB