Based on a true story0

Two friends meet up in a city to do a pre-planned activity.  Afterwards, they are hungry and hence decide to try the all-you-can eat restaurant that they come have come across on their way home (although it is empty at what should be a busy hour). It has been a good day thus far and so they are in a boisterous mood when they get into the restaurant and proceed to eat heartily.  After a few trips back and forth to the buffet table their hunger is satisfied.  They sat loafing for a few moments (as you do when you have eaten your fill) and debated whether to leave or to go for some dessert.  Both agreed that they had eaten enough and decided to leave. This is where it gets interesting: Before they could get up, they saw the manager point to their table from a distance and send a waiter over.

The waiter scurried over and offered the bill before he promptly proceeded to clean up and wipe down the table. The friends were perturbed and soon became offended.  The manager had no way of knowing that they were ready to leave. What about if they wanted dessert or another drink? Did the manager think that could not pay and were planning to run off?  Nobody was waiting to use the table and it was not near closing time either. To make matters worse, they did not think they had eaten excessively.

Surely, this disrespect could not have been because of their age or the way they were dressed or any other stereotype, they reasoned as they got even angrier.  One; not wanting to give the patron the satisfaction of making a scene opted that they both leave immediately in a dignified manner.  The other wanting to make a point and possibly make a scene sat defiantly. The friends got more and more uncomfortable and annoyed with each other as the impasse between them grew. Before the passive one could pull out money to pay their half of the bill, the other leapt from their seat, overpaid the bill and stormed out.

There are many morals to the tale; Neither of the friends would have been wrong if they were truly being discriminated against, but they never bothered to talk to the manager. Instead they came to be angry with one another because of their respective choices and manners of dealing with the situation. They forgot about why they were angry in the first place for a while as well. The fact that the story still works without many references to identity or location is a strong testament to the power of prejudice, insecurities, presumptions and the misunderstandings they can cause anywhere.