Our daughter invites us to dinner with the (potential future) in-laws. She lives in a hipster downtown of a medium sized city, mid-western city, and is enthralled with all of the trendy horseshit that comes with the location. Coffee houses, the latest restaurants. You know the drill.
The place that the kids picked is too busy to even think about accommodating a large table, but the FIL is one of those "I know the owner" types. So, we end up having to watch him as he makes his grand entrance, complete with the owner and staff kissing the ring, making it clear that he is a VIP. Dinner is Italian, grossly overpriced, an in order to really make an impression there is a whole lot of ordering of high end appetizers, and exotic mixed drinks. This is countered by the wife and I, who order an appetizer for our main course, and have water to drink. To really take assholism over the top, the lad's parents "simply can't drink city water" and consequently, there are probably four or five bottles of some designer water brought to the table and served like fine wine. I can only imagine that this whole display of idiocy added $30-40 to the bill. WTF?
The bill comes, and it's over $300. All the sudden there is a bit of furrowed brow action the part of the big shot and his kid. After a watching a few minutes of hushed conversation, and repeated counting of a pile of cash, I grow tired of watching this silliness, and toss some cash toward the kid. Now our meals, with drinks, totaled less than 15% of the bill, so my contribution covered our portion AND a 50% tip. As we leave this overpriced, underwhelming hipster shrine to anti-mustachian stupidity, the kid thanks dad for the meal, even though he split the tab with dad. Dad replies with "your welcome, your all welcome" while glancing at me. I'll never know if I was supposed to thank him for the meal I paid for, or the impressive show he put on?
I can only hope that my daughter snaps out of it, and that the whole lifestyle grows tiring. She wasn't raised like this, and certainly doesn't have the income to support this silliness. As for the future son in law, well it wouldn't break my heart if it doesn't work out. Thanks for listening, I'm done whining.