Minimum Wages Rise, So Does Your Bill

… But they won’t tell you until you’ve finished your dinner.

In a (thankfully brief) visit to already high-priced Palo Alto, the “fine dining” restaurant surprised us with a bill that included the usual California state sales tax and local restaurant/hospitality tax and a mandatory sky-high “tip,” but a new charge of 3% on the overall overpriced figure attributed to “management-imposed costs.”

When we inquired about these costs, the beleaguered waitperson raised zher (non-gender-indicative pronoun required: remember, we’re in Palo Alto) eyes and admitted that the charges were **government**-imposed costs due to the hike in the minimum wage, but calling them that would have (ahem, chortle, cough) invited scrutiny of the overall operation by the local thought police.