Do You Tip Your Shadow?

I'm sure all of you are tired of seeing this any time you make a purchase:

You're far from alone. What started out as a spare-change jar twenty years ago at Starbucks has turned into an industry standard. Tips are now the norm for services rendered with little to no extra effort. Dry cleaners want tips. The workers at a boba shop want tips. Fast food joints want tips even when you pick up the order yourself.

The cashier rifles you through the transaction with rapid-fire verbiage, give you a total, then quickly spin the tablet bearing the above image in a disorienting, modern version of Three Card Monte—a Shell Game of intimidation to scramble up all your neural circuitry and get you to avoid the moral dubiousness of pressing the Custom button at the bottom, rather than the quicker, more morally upright 15% button at the top right, which is what any customer in possession of a backbone is expected to do.

For those of you in the service industry, the following story might upset you. But I don’t care. This tipping business has gotten out of hand. Call me tipophobic if you wish. Such an epithet says more about me than about you.

My campaign against all this egregious tipping (and more importantly—tipping asking!) started when my very own shadow tried to shake me down for some cash for merely doing its job.

You read that correctly: shadow. My own shadow manifested a tablet and did that cocky spinning maneuver. But I didn't fall for it. We therefore are not only not on speaking terms, but are at this point mortal enemies.

It started as a frivolous thing—ok, shadowy shadow, I know you're just being cute, getting all uppity —but now it's become a real crisis.

First things first. Before you go doling out remuneration to your own shadow, let's get down to brass tacks and figure out just what purpose shadows actually serve. We know what they do; but what utility do their actions serve? Their actions are the things of consequence and not effect. Their work achieves nothing. If at all, they merely remind us that the laws of physics are still sticking around in a topsy-turvy world.

All this came to a head when my romantic life took a negative turn. About two weeks ago, I met a cute brunette at a coffee shop. It turned out we liked the exact same things and always ordered the exact same order at that coffee shop: a hazelnut latte (two pumps) with heavy oat milk, accompanied by a chicken pesto panini, hold the tomato.

From behind me in line, she nudged me on the back of my left elbow and said, “Excuse me, but I think you just ordered the exact thing I'm going to order.”

It took me some time to respond because she was, like, stunning. “Is that so?” I managed to eke out.

She smiled—not just with her mouth, but with her eyes (a telltale sign of interest).

I smiled back. “Listen,” I said. “I've never done this, but how about you and I take these hazelnut lattes and paninis and sit outside and discuss the strange phenomenon known as synchronicity?”

Man, I was in a roll. Proving that, she assented. As I got my order and waited to the side for her to get her own, I thanked my lucky stars. She was absolutely stunning.

We went outside and sat at one of those wrought-iron mesh tables with those year-old food crumbs that everyone pretends isn't disgusting, is in some way rustic, and hit it off marvelously.

We talked about, yes, synchronicity—but also about the current political landscape, service animals, and dietary changes we had made. I had recently switched from cane sugar in my coffee to monk fruit, while she had let go of soy milk, what with all the new information coming out about its carcinogenic side effects, and taken up cashew milk, because almond milk meant too much water being relegated to those almonds, which was exploitative of farmers’ rights.

“See?” she said. “We're at least a little different.”

“At least enough to be compatible.” I was surely, as I previously stated, on a roll—a ciabatta roll, as my panini could attest to.

As our lattes and paninis came to their inevitable ends, I stood up. She initiated a hug. I was over the moon.

That is, until she did a double-take. “Like,” she said, letting go of me and drawing back away from me as if I had reeked of something, or had somehow done something ungentlemanly, “where is your shadow?”

We both stood there side by side, facing west. Sure enough, only her shadow stood there, jutting from our feet, tall and proud and elongated like the kung fu fighters in those nifty wu xiapian movies.

She looked askance at me. “Who—or rather, what—are you?”

“Allow me to explain!” I pleaded.

When before she had been the epitome of womanly beauty, she now held that off-putting face that was, I'm sorry, way worse than whatever I had done by not keeping a stupid shadow.

She looked back to the ground where my shadow should have been—still with that face—and shifted her eyes back and forth between me and the clear gray concrete totally absent of shade that should have been given off by my own physical eclipsing of the sun.

“The only explanation I can think of,” she managed to croak, still with that look, “is that you're a vampire.”

I waved my arms to see if I could maybe whip my shadow up into existence, there in the concrete at our feet. Nothing doing. I soon became embarrassed at this behavior as an M-series BMW slid into the parking lot that comprised the concrete where only her shadow had been rightfully cast.

I saw my reflection in the BMW's windshield. If I gave off a reflection, then why not a shadow? She noticed this, pointing.

“Would I win any romance points if I said I was a vampire? Because vampires can be pretty hot. You know—Twilight?"

She finally dissolved that face for the charming one she had been born with. “I'm afraid not. Vampires are undead, ancient as hell, and suck your blood. Not a single positive trait there. And besides—” Here she held up a fist in solidarity. “—Team Jacob.”

“Allow me to explain. You see, one day, about three weeks ago, I bought an online course of Jungian shadow work. It was meant to heal past trauma by integrating your shadow, that is, anything traumatic or repressed from your past or subconscious. It was a solar rite, meant to invoke the power of the sun, without which the shadow cannot exist. The shadow was actually a metaphor for all that ghastly stuff we don't like about ourselves. After the ceremony, which seemed to come off as a success, my shadow manifested a tablet, flipped it over so that I could read it, and asked for a tip. Thus:

“‘I was like, Shadow, why should I tip you? You're just doing your job. Without me, you're nothing.’ To which Shadow responded, ‘Nothing?! Nothing?! I remind you that you exist in three-dimensional space. You think that's easy? Conforming my shape to you? Any time there's light, I have to perform. It's an exhausting gig. You should try it sometime.’

“I was like, ‘Nope. And you ain't getting a tip for me, that's for damn sure.’”

The girl finally spoke. “So you're saying you didn't tip the shadow?”

“Why should I? It was doing its job.”

She sighed. Her shoulders heaved. She finished her latte and chucked it into the nearby trash receptacle. “Answer me this. Did you tip the barista just now?”

My mouth unhinged to answer, but nothing came out.

She walked away and out of my life forever. “I got three pumps!” I yelled. I'd sooner tip my shadow than a barista.

Navigating everyday life without a shadow is challenging if you don't want to be perceived as an undead vampire. I ended up becoming a night owl. During the day after work, I did online research into the SWA, the Shadow Workers of America, a grassroots effort looking to get shadows livable wages, 401k, dental, along with various other trappings of universal suffrage. So far I hadn’t heard of any labor disputes in which any shadows had walked off their jobs, leaving people shadowless.

Much sooner than later, the very sun that powers out solar system—the Sun—the great bestower of life, will want a participation trophy. The sky that covers us all will want perpetual pats on the back. The earth that sustains us will want a coin minted with its image, whatever that should be. Gravity will want its own awareness month and petty jealousy will want a three-day weekend in its honor.

I am hereby proposing an entirely new idea: how about the service provider tips the customer? After all, the customer was kind enough to choose the provider's establishment over hundreds of others. Barber, why should I tip you if the chalkboard says in pastel blue chalk that haircuts are $35? Nice fade, but you should tip me for enduring your stupid stories and halitosis.

As a recovering tipper, I have therefore decided to buy my own tablet. So now, whenever I engage in a transaction of any kind, transactions being two-way streets, and they hit me with this:

I present my own tablet, flip it around 180 degrees, and hit ‘em with this:

Tips are not necessary, but they are encouraged. How ya like me now?

My brand-new novel The Sisterhood of the Wick is available in ebook and paperback.