The hell?!?!?!?!?

Last night, we didn't have curling (lousy bonspiel, ruining all my fun) so my curling buddy and I went out for dinner and a chat about the exciting fact that at least one hot bartender is back this year, and about our respective crushes.

We went to local pub, midway between our places, and had a lovely time. Good food (deep fried cheescake is awesome, yo!), good beer, good conversation, and good hockey (cram it with walnuts you stupid Habs!). All in all, a great evening. We got our bill, paid it, and left the pub. As we were crossing the street, someone kept calling out "Ladies!" We ignored them, as they couldn't be talking to us. It turns out they were. Our server was chasing us, saying we hadn't paid the whole bill, and wanted to talk it out in the middle of traffic on a major street. She said we hadn't left enough, and she could show us, so we followed her back in, and she gave us the folder with our bill and money in it. There were two twenties, a ten, a five and some coins. Not enough to cover the bill. However, we had a problem with this.

The problem? We counted the money three times, and there is no chance that we'd both count a five as a twenty THREE times. Different values in Canadian money can clearly be seen, unlike American money, where you have to look close.

The other problem? Neither of us had a five in our wallets at the start of the evening. My friend had three twenties, and I had a twenty (fresh from the bank machine) and a ten. And as we never asked for change, how the hell did a five get in there?

We know we put $70+ in the folder, and left, so the only thing we can think of is that someone (either our server or someone else on staff, or maybe another patron?) switched out a twenty for a five, and hoped we'd be nice (read: gullible) enough to put more cash down. And the fact that she'd be all "But I can show you!"with something she had left sitting out where anyone in the pub could access it doesn't prove anything. So, when faced with a five instead of a twenty in the folder, we did the only thing we could see doing. We gave her another twenty, grumbled and left.

What was supposed to be a relatively inexpensive night turned into a hugely annoying, very expensive night. I'm never going back, and I'm ever so pissed.

To ease the pain, we went back to her place and downed a bottle of wine.

Really though, what else could we have done?