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In my entire life I have only dine and dashed twice. The first occurrence I barely count, as I only received a portion of my food, and did not even eat all of it. The second, and most recent, occurred just a few days ago and it was a true dine and dash experience.

So one of my friends (I will refrain from naming her for the sake of protecting the innocent) decided that she wanted to go out to dinner. I agreed and we ventured to this small restaurant in downtown Bellingham called Cherubins. The atmosphere is decent and the food was of definite quality. The service however, is what tipped the scale and had me walking out without paying. I’ll skip the narrative and dive straight into the timeline.

7:15 – We arrive at the restaurant.
7:25 – Order taken: two burgers, fries and waters.
7:40 – Burgers arrive. We request our waters and some barbeque sauce.
7:41 – Barbeque sauce and water arrives.
7:55 – Waitress picks up one plate. I request refills of water.
8:15 – I repeat my request for more water.
8:25 – I ask for my check.
8:35 – My unnamed assailant requests the check. I attempt to give the waitress my credit card. She says she’ll be right back.
8:42 – I decide that I am leaving in 3 minutes. My company attempts to flag down the waitress.
8:45 – I stand up and slowly walk out of the restaurant.

Now, I walked out slowly because I wanted the lady to see me leave. However, in the back of my mind, I was truly hoping that she would just let me go. I was hoping that she would realize that I have been trying to pay for my meal for the past 20 minutes, and trying to get some water for almost an hour, and simply let it go. Unfortunately though, she chose not too.

As I got roughly one and a half steps out of the restaurant, she quickly came running informing me that I needed to pay, and asked me if I wanted my check.

My response: a simple “no.”

She looked puzzled, and began to inquire why, at which point I simply (ok, maybe not so simply. I was a bit angry…) gave her a rundown of the above timeline and how I found it simply absurd that within the last hour I had asked for water three times, tried to pay twice, and been completely ignored every time. I explained that I had tried to pay, tried to be patient, tried to sit there and wait, but that I was through being patient, through waiting, and was simply not paying for the meal.

Her response: “Sorry. I will pay for your meal.”

With not much left to be said, I gave her a roundabout apology (I really do feel bad), turned, and walked away. In part, I feel bad for her because the blame is more on management for understaffing their restaurant, but at the same time, it is a glass of water and a bill. Neither of which is a time consuming activity, and neither of which is an activity that she could have requested the bar tender, cook, manager, etc. to handle.

So in closing, I ask you, my readers, did I overreact? What would you have done in that situation? Stay, or walk away?