Dear FloFab: Splitting the Check (or the Friendship?) My girlfriend and I recently went to a restaurant in Chicago with another couple we know relatively well. We split the check in two, with each couple throwing down one credit card to cover their half. After I signed my receipt, I noticed that the other couple barely tipped 10 percent. I tipped 20 percent, so on average our overall tip was 15 percent, which I consider low but not to the point of being completely embarrassing. Still, the situation made me uncomfortable, and had me wondering what I would have done if they had tipped, say, 5 percent. In such a case, should I try to get my receipt back and say I made a mistake to add more tip to cover the difference? Excuse myself and on the way to the bathroom and try to give some additional money to the waiter? Confront my friend? Or just walk out and feign ignorance? Money issues have probably sunk more than one friendship, and you don't have to be Buckingham confronting Richard III to know that. If this situation is indeed a one-off, it's one you might best ignore, and not harbor great guilt over it. However, if you do go out with this couple again, before you write down your tip you might ask the other couple simply "how much are you leaving?" which could result in a reasonable discussion and a more equitable result. If, on the other hand, the other couple still has fish hooks in their pockets and won't cough up more of a tip, you might consider leaving a little more on your half if that makes you feel better. At this point it's more about you than the waiter. Would it be terribly rude to bring our Soirée (a device that is inserted into a wine bottle to decant it as it pours) to a nice restaurant and ask that the servers use it when they pour our wine? We often find that the bottles we order could use the decanting. Not terribly rude, but rude all the same. A fine restaurant, with the capacity to decant wine, or even just pour it into a pitcher, does not need help from other gadgetry. If the wine you order truly needs decanting, an experienced sommelier should be able to take care of it with aplomb, and not with your Soirée.