# People who forget their wallets at restaurants **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [August 20, 2016, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414 "2016-08-20T15:17:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 8\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![Lord\_Feldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lord_feldon/32/341_2.png) [@Lord\_Feldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lord_Feldon)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 7:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/61 "2016-08-29T07:32:00Z")
> [@Washoe](#): > > At any given time, I usually have at least a few hundred sitting in my PayPal account. So even if I forgot both my wallet _and_ my phone (the odds of which are about a billion to one), couldn’t I just ask to see the manager, explain the situation to him, ask to borrow his phone, and PayPal him right on the spot, with an extra $50 (for the manager) thrown in to demonstrate my sincerity? He’d probably be happier than the proverbial pig in poop. Allowing business assets to flow through his personal account sounds like a fast way to the unemployment line. $50 wouldn’t cover that. ---
**Author:** ![aceplace57](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aceplace57/32/3500_2.png) [@aceplace57](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aceplace57)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 7:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/62 "2016-08-29T07:42:58Z")
I had a cc declined at a gas station. This was years ago before they forced people to prepay. I had to leave my spare tire as collateral. I got it back after I went to a bank to cash a check. Never bought gas at that place again. Wasn’t happy with the way I was treated at all. ---
**Author:** ![glee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/b5a626/32.png) [@glee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/glee)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 7:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/63 "2016-08-29T07:47:15Z")
When I was a student (and had no car) I was at a cafe and had cash. However it got got embarrassing when I was about £1 ($1.30) short. :smack: I told the manager what had happened and offered to go home and get the money. He agreed. I went outside to the bus stop … … then came back in and asked for bus fare home. :eek: The manager laughed and gave me the fare. When I returned, I gave the manager a big tip. ---
**Author:** ![RivkahChaya](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rivkahchaya/32/8919_2.png) [@RivkahChaya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RivkahChaya)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 7:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/64 "2016-08-29T07:58:15Z")
What I have heard, was that in earlier times, and especially during the Depression, people lined up at the back doors of restaurants starting about an hour before close (about the time they let the last customers in) to do clean up in exchange for leftovers. The least desirable job, I’m guessing from my Army KP experience, was washing pots and pans. In the 1950s, public health laws started to tighten up, making this less viable, and then in the 1970s, employment laws pretty much put it to rest. But it was such a custom, that “dishwasher” wasn’t a separate job. The prep cooks and busboys washed the dishes as necessary, and the pots and pans got done once a night. Places like McDonald’s have the closers mop and vacuum before they leave; upscale restaurants have hired contract crews that come in during the night. The back door crowds did the sweeping up and cleaning of the kitchen before about WWII. If you didn’t have enough money to pay, forgot your wallet, or whatever, you just got sent to stand in line with the backdoor crowd. Or if you were dressed well enough that the owner believed you really honestly forgot your wallet, he might come up with a job you could do right away, to get you out, and to get a little work out of you. At least, my father, who was born in 1930, and my grandparents, remember seeing the lines. They never actually stood in them-- albeit, for them, a restaurant meal was a very, very rare occurrence in their lives. “Will work for food” was an actual thing once. My father remembers homeless people occasionally knocking on the back door asking if they had any work that needed done in exchange for a meal. My grandmother always scrounged up some food for them. She usually didn’t have any pressing work, but she might have them do something like shine everybody’s shoes (a nightly task for my father and his brother), just to preserve the guy’s dignity. My father was happy to get out of shining his shoes for the night. I remember having to put scuff cover on my shoes once a week, and my father telling me I should be happy I didn’t have to shine them every night. ---
**Author:** ![Mister\_Rik](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mister_rik/32/491_2.png) [@Mister\_Rik](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mister_Rik)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 7:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/65 "2016-08-29T19:22:09Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I’ll bet that the idea of working off your meal by washing the dishes is nothing more than a movie cliche, or at best a memory of some long-lost practice which might have existed during the Depression Era. I heard a comedian ask the question “How does making you do the dishes make the restaurant any money? Do they send the dishwasher home without pay that night? I’d hate to be that dishwasher.” As a career foodservice person, I’ve always chuckled at the exaggerated stacks of dirty dishes depicted in those scenes (I mostly saw this in comic strips, not movies/TV). I see that and think, “What restaurant waits until the end of the night to wash all of the dishes?” And I can guarantee that no restaurant actually has that many plates on hand to begin with, because the idea is that the plates get used, washed, and returned to the kitchen on a continuing basis throughout the day. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/66 "2016-08-29T20:13:34Z")
It happened to me once at a place where I ate often. I had my wallet with me, but not enough cash on hand. I paid what I had and offered to bring in the rest the next time I came in, but they said to just not worry about it. ---
**Author:** ![Omar\_Little](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/omar_little/32/269_2.png) [@Omar\_Little](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omar_Little)\ **Post date:** [August 29, 2016, 9:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/67 "2016-08-29T21:12:29Z")
> [@aceplace57](#): > > I had a cc declined at a gas station. This was years ago before they forced people to prepay. > > I had to leave my spare tire as collateral. I got it back after I went to a bank to cash a check. > > Never bought gas at that place again. Wasn’t happy with the way I was treated at all. You weren’t happy that they didn’t just let you have the gas for free? ---
**Author:** ![3trew](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/3/13edae/32.png) [@3trew](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/3trew)\ **Post date:** [August 30, 2016, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414/68 "2016-08-30T04:25:23Z")
> [@sbunny8](#): > > I’m a locksmith, so 99% of these cases are situations where we have already established their name, their address, their phone number, their driver’s license number, and gotten their signature on a 2-part carbonless authorization form. I am sure you are ethically impeccable, but the idea of stiffing a locksmith who has my address just seems like it could become self defeating so easily. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/people-who-forget-their-wallets-at-restaurants/763414.md?page=3)