$1 TIP FOR A 40-CENT MILKSHAKE

Patricia Crowe, copy editor

I was 16 in 1974, ready for my first “real” job beyond babysitting. I was a few weeks into working behind the lunch counter at Woolworth’s when I got a better offer. I remember two things from my short-term short-order stint: my pay came in a small envelope and included small bills and dimes and nickels; not all toast is created equal.

Who knew a customer could be so fussy about how brown a slice of bread gets?

I left there and worked the rest of the summer at the much more glamorous A&W at Peel and SteCatherine Sts. As it turns out, I was a terrible waitress — and my customers let me know it. I left orders tucked into my apron forgetting to give them to the kitchen, mixed up who asked for what, couldn’t make a proper milkshake.

My saving grace: I am not clumsy. I quickly mastered carrying a tray weighted with mugs of root beer floats and a family’s worth of burgers, fries and onion rings. To this day, it is a useful skill.

I also learned something less practical, but just as enduring. One afternoon, after one of those mornings when a tour busload of people lined up outside the door before we even opened, an “older” woman, in her 30s maybe, ordered a milkshake. I think it cost about 40 cents. I don’t know how good or bad it was, or how long she had to wait for it, but she smiled when I took it to her. And she left me a $1 tip.

Forty-three years later, I am back where I started. I am an editor at the Gazette — at Peel and Ste-Catherine. Instead of trays, I try to make sure stories are balanced. I serve up bad news, tragedy, corruption, disaster, but also other stories, of kindness and generosity, that are worth telling, too.

I always overtip.