‘WAITER, I’VE GOT A LITTLE PROBLEM . . . ‘

Remember the sternly avuncular face of Karl Malden? Remember his famous admonition “don’t leave home without it”? Remember that unlucky couple in Venice, Italy, who had to cancel their dream vacation? Well, that’s TV.

What about the same unlucky couple in Venice, Calif.? What if they went out for some fun and found themselves sans credit cards, sans cash, sans traveler’s checks? What if they’d already eaten that expensive dream dinner by the time the discovery was made?

In the comics they’d end up doing the dishes. It doesn’t quite work that way in real life, as I was to discover in four local restaurants.

My assignment was to go out and eat dinner. But when the check came I was to announce that I had no money. The point of the ploy was to discover how the various restaurants would react. (Having gotten the reaction, of course, I would promptly produce payment.)

When my wife heard about this, she was not thrilled; she was sure that having a meal with me under these circumstances would turn her into an accomplice. As we entered our first target, a moderately priced, very well-known Italian restaurant filled with family groups, I tried to calm her fears. “Don’t worry,” I said, “if worse comes to worse we’ll be out of jail in 24 hours.”

We were led to a dark corner of the restaurant, and I experienced the first flashes of fear. Time crept slowly by as we waded through large portions of antipasto, ravioli, veal Parmesan and chocolate mousse cake. The clock ticked; the pressure steadily mounted.

Suddenly, during coffee, my wife cracked. “Why do I have to be here? This is not my job.” With that she excused herself and walked out the door. I summoned up some courage and summoned the check. It was then I noticed that I had been overcharged $10.

“Excuse me, Miss,” I said, “you’ve misadded the bill.” “Sorry,” she said, “I’m really having a bad day.” With considerable guilt I replied, “Me too. I grabbed the wrong wallet, and, er, I don’t have my money.” “No credit cards either?” the waitress asked. “Nope.”

She muttered and shook her head. She uttered a low growl of disapproval. She disappeared. “What happens now?” I wondered. A minute later a smiling lady appeared. “You have a lovely wife,” she said, “and you look like a nice man. Do you have a business card?” I offered it to her. She looked at it, nodded and put it in her pocket. “We’ll just keep this,” she said sweetly, “and you bring us the money as soon as you can.”

“What a nice lady,” I thought as I got up to leave. An hour later I returned to pay the check.

That first restaurant had been so nice about the whole thing that I decided I was ready for a tougher target. This time I approached a well-known deli. As I strode in for lunch with a friend I wondered if they would make chopped liver of me in this powerlunch mecca.

“Counter for two,” I said smoothly. As we kvetched and fressed our way through too many kosher pickles and not enough smoked salmon, my friend grew progressively uneasy. She had wanted to come along for the ride, but during dessert she took a walk. “I’ll get the car,” she apologized.

Waiting in line to pay the cashier I began to get nervous myself. When I announced: “I don’t have any money,” I got angry stares from the agents and eaters, all anxious to get on with the day.

“Quit holdin’ up the line,” someone shouted. Suddenly a Damon Runyonesque figure appeared. “What’s the story?” he growled. He did not seem impressed with my misplaced wallet story.

“How did you expect to pay the check if you didn’t bring any money?” he asked. I replied that it was purely unintentional. A chorus of “c’mons” echoed from the line. “OK, OK, we’ll send you a bill,” he rasped, “leave your name.” With that he turned on his heel. (A week later a bill arrived.)

“Could any assignment be easier than this?” I pondered, sipping boutique wine at Westwood’s most chic restaurant. My first two experiences had been so easy that I had once again convinced my wife to accompany me for dinner. And I was now so confident that I felt I needed a more challenging response. So I became the ugly customer, asking questions and demanding service. “Waiter, where did you say that quail was from?” “Hey you, this bread isn’t hot enough.” “Excuse me, but why is this salad bowl so big?”

The staff refused to be rattled. They remained unfailingly pleasant. And when I made the big announcement to our dewy-eyed waiter, he hardly even blinked. “Something terrible has happened,” I said. “I seem to have forgotten my wallet and my wife has no money either.” The waiter smiled. “Be back in a minute,” he said cheerfully, “don’t leave town.” Before I had time to plan my next move he returned with a sunny look of reassurance. “It’s all taken care of.”

“That’s it?” I gasped.

“Yep,” said the waiter, “we trust you.”

With a flushed face I walked to the main desk and let the manager in on my shenanigans. Pulling a wad of bills from my pocket, I paid the bill. The money was accepted with a friendly smile. This had to be a dream.

But I was soon to have a rude awakening. I took a friend to one of our town’s most star-studded restaurants, where we were seated beneath an indoor tree. An impeccably groomed waiter appeared to take our order, and for an hour or so we drank our wine and ate our dinner. Everything was fine until it came time to give the waiter the unhappy news.

My friend, like my wife, decided that this was not his job; he left ahead of the check. Shortly thereafter an unhappy Englishman in a pin-striped suit was leaning on my table, a picture of studied formality. “What seems to be the problem?” he asked. I explained that I had no money. “Why did you send your partner away?” he queried. “Well,” I said, “I invited him to dinner, and I didn’t want to embarrass him.”

The Englishman furrowed his pristine brow. “You can’t leave until you pay the bill,” he said with brusque finality.

“But maybe if I go out to the car I’ll find that I dropped my wallet there,” I countered. The Englishman wanted none of that. “You parked three blocks away,” he snapped icily, “one of the waiters saw you walk in.”

My car was three blocks away. And I had, in fact, left my wallet under the front seat; I didn’t have a penny on the premises. “What now?” I said to myself, envisioning the night in jail.

“Maybe you’d let a waiter walk me to my car,” I said aloud, “so I can check for my wallet.” This idea aroused limp enthusiasm. “You can hold my keys,” I said desperately, pulling them from my pocket.

A complicated set of negotiations ensued, and my request was finally granted. A waiter walked me to my car, where I miraculously found my wallet. As I paid the check I realized I had perhaps pushed my luck too far--or in the wrong place.

The moral of this story is that you never know what will happen when you can’t come up with the cash. My advice is to check your pockets one last time before leaving the house; Karl Malden has a point.

(Editor’s note: The restaurants visited turned out to be kinder than anticipated, so names were withheld to protect the innocent.)