Steve Braunias on how to cope with the question of tips in restaurants

Tipping is an art. Photo / 123rf

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." There you are, fed and watered and liquored, the meal has filled up your senses like a night in a forest, you were blind with hunger but now you can see, you mopped up the plate with your tongue when you thought no one was looking and all you want to do now is go gently into that good night and die the beautiful death of sleep – but suddenly you have been slapped awake by a serious question asked of you as you swipe your card.

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." No one would ever actually come out and ask the question, so it's slipped in electronically, at a discrete remove, on the little Eftpos screen, at the end of your meal and the end of the evening, although it signals the start of something: anxiety.

It's such a terse and demanding question. It's a question that grabs you by the scruff of your neck, fixes you with an impassive stare and presents you with a stark choice: Yes/No. There's no room for the answer to most questions in life: "I don't know."

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." Do you believe in life after death? Is there a point to existence? Can we ever really know another person? Do you wish to add a tip? All the big questions in life are examinations of your moral code. A friend emailed me the other day, "I am very well — living as moral a life as I can hope and this is a daily task because it's very hard to live well in such a sick world that rewards sickness. But I try and fail and I suppose this is the texture of life … What is weak is to say one is moral when one is not. An all-too-familiar phenomenon in the world and a position to which I can relate at times as it is a life-long wrestle." God knows how she handles the yes/no tip inquisition.

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." It's not that difficult.

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." What you really wish for is not be asked in the first place. The question puts you in a headlock, wrestles you to the floor, and screams in your face, but it doesn't have to be like that. There's such a sense of well-being when you go to pay for a meal and the notion occurs to you to add a tip. It becomes a matter of choice, a matter of exercising your own free will. Also, it presents you with a flattering reflection. You're a good person, you're responsible, you're sensitive to the needs of those working in the hospitality industry; you're an embodiment of that golden rule of life known as the kindness of strangers. But you don't make a fuss of it. It's no big deal. You're doing it without really thinking. The question forces you to think; worse, it forces you to act.

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." In fact, that's not the question. What the yes/no tip dilemma presents is another, far more personal and disturbing question. The question is this: what's your relationship with money? God. What a question. It's more intrusive and revealing than being asked about sex. Money, the central fact of adult life; money, the want and need of it, the have and the have not of it, the constant whirring, buzzing, roaring sound of it – all of it reaching a fine point as you stand at the counter of the restaurant, about to cough up for food and drink. Are you generous with money? Are you a Scrooge with money? What's your relationship with money? Do you worry about the scarcity of money? Would you do anything for money? What's your relationship with money? Did you vote Labour? Did you vote National? What's your relationship with money? What's more important, love or money? What was your parents' relationship with money? What's your relationship with money?

"Do you wish to add a tip? Yes/No." Yes.