Shadowgirls

So, let's see…  References…  Two comics ("Starkweather", of course, and "Rival Angels", which while not belonging to one of the Daves has had some serious crosstalk with SG), a band (which is what you find if you Google "Tangerine Dream"), a blatant "Victoria's Secret" analog, and a "heart" emoticon which, possibly, might also be a comic reference, possibly to Giz Legace's "Menage a 3″ given that color scheme…

In the U.S., the legal minimum wage for wait-staff in restaurants is actually significantly lower than for anything else.  The goverment actually expects them to get tips, and allows their employer to pay them less as a result.  As the French would say, "Service n'est pas compris" ("Service not included").  However, unlike in France, restaurants here don't explicitly say it, except sometimes on the check.  (In France they may not say it either, but they'll make a point of "Covert compris" – "Cover included", and imply by omission that service is not.)

The baseline I'd been taught for restaurant tips is 15% for average service, 10% for sub-par, 20% for amazing, at 24 pennies in an upside down glass of water if the person is truly obnoxious.  A number of places will automatically add an 18% "gratuity" to the check if the group is more than, say, 5 people, but many of them don't deserve it.  Since sales tax in NYC and on Long Island is in the 8-9% range, it's typical for people to just use "double the sales tax".  That doesn't work anywhere else though, as some of my friends discovered when they moved to Indiana.

At the same time, it's possible to get a table at a place that's reserved solid if the bribe is sufficient, provided the place takes reservations rather than automatically putting everyone who shows up on a waiting list.

For food delivery, if they charge a Delivery Fee, then that's the same as including a "gratuity" on the check; that's the tip, unless either the amount is crummy, or you know that it's not going to the delivery guy.  Some places will actually pay the delivery guys less than the IRS-specified mileage reimbursement (intended to cover gas and wear-and-tear on the vehicle), which may or may not have kept up with the wacky rollercoaster of gas prices over the last ten years, and may be paying less than minimum wage for their time (off the books, even in a major chain), so they live on tips.  However, the 15% baseline for average service doesn't apply here; 5% is probably more standard, but not less than $2.  (Some places will charge a delivery fee only if the order is below a certain amount, usually $20.  Otherwise, it's unfair to make someone deliver an order that's less than $20, unless you plan on tipping disproportionately high compared to the price of the food / merchandise.)

For either, though, demanding a tip is bad form.  Also, while restaurants will let you put the tip on a credit card, that's not advisable either; unless you explicitly want to tell the restaurant that this person was really good or really bad, how much the wait-staff gets in tips is really between the customer and the wait-staff, since some unscrupulous employers will actually cut a person's regular wages if they get good tips.  (Wait-staff worth having at such places generally don't stick around long if they're any good, leaving at the first sign of a better job, unless either the tips are amazing or the base wage is phenomenal to begin with.)

The only people where it's normal for them to hang around waiting for a handout are hotel service, specifically room service and bellhops.  I've occasionally be surprised when, after running around, trying to find something special, a hotel employee has left without me having the opportunity to tip them.  However, they're not supposed to be obvious about it.  Aside from a couple of bucks left conspicuously out for the maid service, hotel service tips tend to be concealed in a handshake.  As do bribes for the maitre-d' at a restaurant to seat someone without a reservation.

@Tink: Restaurant and hotel service aside, most retail workers don't get tips.  I would hope that most of the customers who are that demanding would at least offer something up-front.  And Moira McKay, being used to having money, would well know how that system works; she'd have handed someone at each place an extra $5 or larger, along with whispered instructions.  ("The concierge at the hotel next door" might be an obvious assumption, but the concierge would still need to know who the packages should either be held for or placed in the room of.)

@adamas: I've heard the same thing from a few people; everyone should spend some time working retail or grocery or food service.  Especially rich people.  Teaches humility.

I did grocery for a few months back in high school.  Many grocery chains will actually forbid employees to accept tips, even for bagging (separately from being the cashier) or for carrying stuff to your car.

@Bounty: Now that I look, yeah, it seems like Becka may not be sleeping well…

Hey guys. Remember me? Made a wall of text on theories back when gage/cage whatever the douche's name is showed up. Time for another one!

I'd like to address something Adamas, I believe, said in a previous thread. I didn't believe Moira McKay was the Master. Yes, this person is the Master…But whether or not this person is Moira is arguable.

First, Moira would have to fake her death, which she would have to have done to be alive at the lighthouse when all that shit hit the fan. Note that when we saw Moira again for the first time, she was a regenerating corpse hitch-hiking. The key point that determines whether or not Moira is the Master is WHEN and WHY she regerated. If it happened because of the lighthouse, she is the master. If it happened after years of legitimately being dead, she isn't.

Due to genre conventions concerning showing villains still are alive, and that Moira's dialogue hear has many double meanings, it is relatively safe to say she is the master after all.

The otherwise merely symbolic ceremonial mask the master wore now adds an additional function as well: hiding her face from those who would recognize her. Further, the loose fitting robes would serve to make the master's gender ambiguous. This was likely intentional by the artist, and the master him/herself.

Lastly, I went back on the comic archives and searched for the eye color of the master. Sure enough, the master also has Moira's current eye color. However, this does not prove it absolutely.

I know most of you probably figured that out already, and given the whole shadow thing my hesitation to call her the master must seem odd. But the Daves, skilled as they are, could very well be using more complex scenarios than they appear, or red herrings. Whether or not it's all a red herring, or only parts of it are, remains to be seen.

I do have to wonder, where is Moira getting the money from, that (a) it wasn't available to Charon, and (b) she still has access to it despite most likely being legally dead?  What happened to Susan McKay's assets after she died that they, too, were not available to Charon?

I do also have to wonder whether there is any familial relationship betwen Moira McKay and a certain Mr. Banks (Chrissy's father)…

Perhaps, but if the name on the credit card isn't "Moira McKay", someone is going to get suspicious.  Yet, with "Moira McKay" legally dead…

Even corporate credit cards have the name of the authorized user printed on them, and said authorized user's Social Security Number (or other universal identifier) attached to the account.  While highly possible that someone went out of their way to set this up for her and make sure it didn't set off any alerts to anyone who should have notified Susan or Charon she was still alive, her access to resources which, theoretically, should have either reverted to Charon, as her acknowledged only offspring and heir, either at the time of her disappearance and presumed demise or at the ten year anniversary thereof as part of her legal presumption of death, or the access to which should have set off hundreds of police and FBI Missing Persons alerts, is fishier than Robert "Big Purple" Olmstead and "Merri" combined.

I'll admit it's possible for Susan's resources to have been… diverted.  The fraudulant mortgage scams that have appeared in enough cop shows, could, other things notwithstanding, by itself have resulted in Charon's financial problems.  Still, when Susan died, while it's possible she had a pension of some kind that expired with her passing, and there was perhaps a legitimate mortgage still on the house, any other resources she had, even without a will, should have gone somewhere.  I don't know what Massachusettes' laws on the matter are, but I expect that the government would not just sieze whatever assets there were with a living descendant.  Without a will, unless there were multiple living descendants (seems unlikely; any cousins Charon had would have come into the picture sooner, unwed mother or not) she should have at least received something by default.  I also find it hard to believe Susan would have intentionally left Charon with nothing by willing everything to someone else, and I would expect that her son's untimely death would have prompted her to do something see to Charon's security.

But Charon has already started asking these questions, as noted in "Charon's Research Part One" on April 5.  Moira's reappearance, and the bill for the shopping trip Moira is taking Becka on, is undoubtedly going to bring all this to a head…

"Where the hell have you been for the last 20 years?  And while you're at it, all this money you're suddenly throwing around now that you're back?  Where is it coming from, and why wasn't it there when I could have saved the house after Gran died, and found regular day-care for Becka so I could finish school and get a decent job with which to, again, keep the house, and give Becka the kind of relatively-comfortable childhood that you and Dad and then Gran were able to give me?"

And so, I look forward to both the cover stories and actual truth of Moira McKay's whereabouts (and resources) being revealed.

Meanwhile the hourly rate the independent service centers charge is now $75 per hour (1 hour minimum), and the dealerships charge $90 per hour (1 hour minimum).  The only exceptions are fixed-price services with short timeframes, like oil changes.  But if you need the light bulbs changed in your dashboard or taillight, whether it's 1 or all of them, they'll still charge you the same $90 for labor, plus however many bulbs they claim they changed (which they may or may not have changed all of).

I keep thinking of Keanu Reeves for some reason; standing on a stage talking about how Socrates was accused with 'corruption of the young'…

Insidiousnessssssss…