Today's Advice: 4AM Chinese Restaurant Etiquette
Situation: You've just had a crazy night at one of your favorite Places and you may or may not have had a little to drink. It's 4AM and, of course, you and the crew are hungry as hell.
Objective: To acquire quick food without being arrested for disorderly conduct, DWI, or public intoxication.
Advice: Avoid stealing.
Real Life Example: Our group of 6--which included a bouncer, a Korean, the highest functioning alcoholic in Dallas and black guy with a cane and a lost and found fedora--walk across the street to a Chinese restaurant, which clearly stays open to feed the drunken masses, to grab a quick bite.
The cashier isn't "pleasant", but it's also 4AM and he's a cashier and we may or not have been drinking. We all order and pay, one by one, and everything is fine until the last guy--who is neither Korean, an alcoholic, a bouncer, wearing a fedora nor writing this account--pays with cash (cash?) and gets shorted $.47.
That's a quarter, two dimes and two pennies.
While waiting for the food, our sixth friend becomes increasingly agitated about his change. We get our food and the cashier returns to the back before we leave. The now angry member of our crew turns back and grabs a dollar out of the tip jar and heads for the door. Next thing you know, the cashier is shouting, "Hey, what hell!!?"
We take off running. The bouncer scoops up the Korean who is in heels, the alcoholic stumbles onto a patio with tables but no chairs and the guy with the cane hobbles across the wet street. I grab the car and half of the crew hops in just as a cop hears the the cashier shouting.
I speed away and lay low for a bit then cruise back by to pick up the leftovers. I found the guy with the cane and alcoholic eating garlic beef on the tables with no chairs and the angry thief had managed to get away with a warning.
Advice (Amended): Run/hobble/stumble as quick as you can to the nearest vehicle or patio and act natural.