“When I was in graduate school working on my doctorate, I had a ‘friend’ who was as cheap and as greedy as a person could be.
She was one of those people who always begged for a bite, a piece, or a sip. Even if I had eaten half of my food, played around in it with my fork, or sat talking over it, she would tell the server clearing the table to leave my plate so she could eat the rest. She did this in an Indian restaurant once, and the server literally blanched and looked at me incredulously. I just shrugged as this woman proceeded to scarf down my half-eaten cucumber salad. Any time I didn’t eat everything on my plate, she’d ask if she could have it.
Well, the last time we ever went out to eat was when we went to a Chinese restaurant and she decided that she wasn’t really ‘in the mood’ for the teriyaki beef dish she had ordered and was really hankering for the shrimp fried rice I had ordered that came on a large platter with a serving spoon. Her eyes got really wide when our server brought out our food, and she saw all of that rice. She never offered to pay for half my meal even though she readily helped herself. Because I was taught that it is rude and petty to deny someone food who asks, I silently watched her heap her plate with fried rice and eat it. When the check came, she paid for her untouched meal and asked the server to wrap it up so that she could take it home and eat it at another time.
There were other incidents. There was the time she went into an ice cream shop to get us ice cream while I waited outside with my dog who could not go in for obvious reasons. Moments later she came running back out with only her cone because my cone cost 30 cents more than I had given her. But eating half of my dinner and never offering to pay was the last straw and the last time I ever went anywhere with this woman.”
