Earlier today I went to a Indian Restaurant for lunch. While that might not sound unusual, I go out for lunch often. But quite rarely go out for Indian places.

In any case, it was not a usual day, so let’s chalk it down under that.

As I go in a choose a table and walk over to the buffet checking out my options I notice while the place was not buzzing there were 2 tables with 2 people each and 3 other tables where people were dining by themselves, like I was about to. Of the 4, me included, tables that now had a single person dining by themselves 3 were from the Indian Subcontinent or there abouts. The 4th was not only not a male, she also was not from the subcontinent. At least she didn’t seem to be from that part of the world. I am of course guessing. But my guess was based on the fact that she not only very fair, but she also seemed to have blonde hair.

Anyway, having selected some of the food I made myself comfortable in my table and started paying more attention to my fellow diners. One of the two tables that was occupied by more than 1 person was asking a lot of questions about the food. The woman would ask the restaurant people all kinds of questions about each of the dishes. She seemed to also have brought a list of food that she was trying to find out if the restaurant had. Much later when they were leaving she even commented that she was expecting the food to be more spicy.

Moving back to the blonde haired woman who was one of the 4 diners dining by themselves, she was done and got her stuff together, got up and walked past the counter and out the door. For a split second I might have thought something else but I immediately told myself that she must have paid earlier or maybe paid before sitting down. Or it could also be that she actually had come with her friends and they paid for her when they left. Maybe she had joined them later or something. This second possible scenario actually a lot more sense because that would also make it easier to think that she was not really dining alone but was merely dining after her friends had already left.

As I finally settled that it had to one of those 2 scenarios or something equally logical, the guy at the counter seemed to ask one of the waiter if the girl had just walked out without paying. The waiter pointed to the table and seemed to indicate that there was no money there. The man behind the counter eventually, with utter disbelief in face walked out the main door to check if she was still around. Of course she wasn’t.

It took me a few more minutes to accept what just happened right in front of me. Over the next few days I have been told that what I witnessed was commonly known as “Dine and Dash”.

– manzoor