This is another installment of songs in alphabetical order from my Thanksgiving playlists... I got to wondering, around Thanksgiving, about why a gratuity is what you pay your wait staff, but movies often have gratuitous violence. And the answer I found troubling. It means: added freely, without stated value, unnecessary. Makes sense in the movies. But if you've ever waited tables, it's rough work, and *with* tips, these people aren't becoming Rockefeller. Before the pandemic took its most recent turn for the worse, I was at a diner near here, and was asking the waitress how she was making out, with fewer tables for distancing and so on. Without batting an eye, she tells me they raised her pay to $5 an hour - from $2.85!! I tend to be a generous tipper, if for no other reason than thinking of it as a "there but for the grace of god" charge. But gratuitous? It is not over and above or without clear value. It is their wage, under our screwy system. Just something to bear in mind.
