Last night I was part of the Long Beach Post foursome fielded to take part in the 17th Annual Putt-Putt on Pine, a fundraiser to benefit Leadership Long Beach. The basic premise: shoot an eight-hole course at various businesses and other spaces downtown, each of which provided golfers with food, drink, even entertainment (such as the entire HollywoodCanteen SwingBand all decked out in formalwear). “Pine Avenue locations plus the East Village with tantalizing refreshments along the way!” read the promotional material. “[… P]lay a little miniature golf, get food and drink from restaurants and businesses, and have a great evening of fun!”
The cost was not cheap — $40 per person — but there’s no question that the event delivered as advertised. Except, perhaps, at one location.
As at many of the holes, the food was a serve-yourself spread. “Would you like a drink?” the person in charge queried. “We have IPA, and….” We were a bit surprised when the beers we received were pints — we didn’t even want that much (well, three of us didn’t, anyway) — but the refreshments everywhere else had been “all you can eat/drink,” so this seemed in keeping with the festivities. We noshed and tippled and golfed rather poorly, then said our thank-yous and hit the sidewalk to continue play.
Behind us the voice of our host caught our attention. “You have to pay for the beers,” the person said. “Sixteen dollars.”
We were a bit stunned, but before I was able to collect myself to react, one of our team handed over a twenty, and we all grumbled as we waited for the change.
I tell you what I told them: I would not have paid. “I couldn’t do that,” the payer replied — not because he felt we owed the money, but because of that pathological avoidance of confrontation many of us have.
If I have that gene, it is recessive, because I don’t care if we’d been asked for $1 total for the beers: on principle I wouldn’t have paid. As I explained (with all the civility I could muster) to the person in charge, we did not ask for anything to drink but were offered the beers (to the point of specificity: “We have IPA…”) in the middle of an event where providing potables was par for the course.[1]
This may have been an honest misunderstanding (although when the person denied having offered the beers — a flat untruth — I was not filled with good faith), and I’m withholding the name of the establishment because my point isn’t to shame anyone.
I imagine all of us have had experiences (at restaurants, etc.) where we were up-sold without our knowledge, where we were offered something in a way that couched the cost so effectively (and, as is usually the case in such scenarios, disingenuously) that we were shocked when the bill arrived. If you’re anything like me, when it happened the unpleasant warmth you felt flushing up through your body had less to do with the money you were suddenly out for something that may have been nice but wasn’t desired in the first place and for which you would never have paid, and more with an impotent combination of anger and hurt from having been taken advantage of. It’s never fun to feel duped, especially when it was done to you in the guise of hospitality.
In such cases, most people do what my teammate did: they let it go. They almost never do so because they are indifferent to the situation; rather, when faced with the prospect of saying, in effect, “You’re trying to pull a fast one, but I’m not playing along” — or at the very least, “I am not going to pay for your misrepresentation” — they go avoidant. “I couldn’t do that,” my friend said. I get it. Even though personally I’d prefer to live in a world where people stand up for themselves, I don’t presume to say what anyone else should do in this type of situation.
By this point probably plenty of readers are speeding through to the end so they can tell me what a cheap bastard I am, while others are reliving the internal discomfort they felt not only at having once (or twice, or thrice) been in such a situation, but at their own passive reaction to it. Damned if you do, damned if you don’t.
None of this should be read as a stain on Putt-Putt on Pine. Leadership Long Beach concocted a creative and fun fundraiser, one that played into activating downtown for a night in a unique way. I trust next year’s event will go off as well as this year’s. The only difference I hope for is that everyone is playing on the same greens.