May 2, 2008

Clutch is key. You never know when you may be called upon to pull out the winning play - when everything rides on one crucial decision, that’s clutch.

I was with some friends at Red Robin this afternoon, celebrating the life and times of one Peter Crane, who will be heading back to greener mountains in Vermont this weekend.* The food was great…the service, not so much. We had to flag a second waiter to bring extra fries, and our original waiter never noticed that my “bottomless” drink had found bottom and was sitting, bottomed out, for quite some time. Not that he could have seen it, because after bringing our food he dropped off the face of the planet. Not only that, but once he returned I had to ask twice for a refill. So I was calculating the minimum tip I could give without being rude (always the firm believer in leaving a tip, however small, no matter what), when he came by again, this time with the clutch question:

“Would you like one to go?”

Now, I know they always offer to-go drink topoffs at RR. But usually it’s only soda; and in fact I asked for a Coke, thinking there’s no way he would bring a Blueberry Pomegranate Limeade to go. But sure enough, he brought out one overflowing with red, white, and blue goodness. I looked at Brad and he shrugged and said, simply, “Clutch.” And it was. His tip went from bare minimum back to standard 20% rounded up to the nearest convenient dollar increment. Why? Because that’s clutch. Because that’s bottom-of-the-ninth, 11th-hour, buzzer-beating clutch, that’s why.

* Did you see what I did there?