I confess to having recently turned forty, a milestone that often sends its conquerors into prolonged therapy but that I have survived more or less intact. I still have my own hair, teeth and bendable joints so who am I to complain?
I have wondered of late though if there exists a correlation between chronological age and the amount of times one agrees with Andrew Coyne.
Among my friends, political persuasion, if such tendencies even mean anything any more, tends to fall somewhere in the centre to centre-left category. Sure I have a few friends on either extreme, who I tend to keep apart from one another in social gatherings, but for the most part most friends and associates would find agreeing with Andrew Coyne akin to an Edmontonian cheering the Flames. It’s just not done in polite company.
Often I would read the National Post for sport; its layout remains one of the best in the land but its content is best suited for partisan jabbing and general mockery. Coyne, until his departure from that publication for the pages of Maclean’s - a magazine for which I have written, for Heaven’s sake! - was frequently the chief target of our disdain. Well written and articulate he seemed to kill his own arguments with extremism that made him fun to mock.
Now I’ve always had a fiscally conservative side to me so economically Coyne and I weren’t always so far apart. The simplicity of his economic theorems is sometimes comforting, easy to digest when too tired for careful and/or realistic analysis.
But lately I’ve found myself agreeing with him more often than not. Coyne’s not getting any hipper; this must surely be the aging process in action.
Of particular interest prompting this response is a recent column decrying the ever-increasing practice and expectation of tipping.
Sorry lefty friends; I could not possibly agree more with Mr. Coyne on this one. From the coffee shop to the hairdresser to the garbage collector, the number and variety of occupations for whom I am expected to provide extra has grown to ridiculous proportions.
And please don’t try to tell me that these employees rely on the generosity of their patrons as a significant portion of their livelihood. That ought not to be the way it is and it is perpetuated by our insistence on going along with it.
In the past several months I have had occasion to stay at the Delta Ocean Point Resort in Victoria and the Fairmont Chateau Whistler. At both these fine hostelries, parking is not included in the price of accommodation; to have one’s car parked guests fork out an additional $15 and $28 per night respectively. On top of this we’re expected to tip the young university student or ski lifty respectively to whom I’ve just nervously handed over my keys?
Truth is, were I not already paying outrageous prices for the service provided I would be less reluctant to “give a little something” to the service provider. At $28 a pop, buddy, your tip is included, even if I have you retrieve my vehicle several times while I go for drives and return to the hotel.
The same is true at Starbucks or other coffee houses (even the fair-trade ones, lefty friends): were the price of the product not already beyond what normal, sensible people ought to be paying for beverages, the thought of adding a tip to the bill might not seem so implausible, despite the fact all most coffee house employees due to earn such extras is pour the java into a cup, hardly an example of going the extra mile. In fact, it barely covers the mile.
Coyne’s anti-tipping crusade of one makes sense and I’m willingly on board.
I just worry about with whom I’ll agree by the time I turn fifty. 
