restaurant etiquette

Does seem a little strange that people would be so embarrassed that they would pretend they were taking food home for the dog.  I wondered if wiki would have something to say on the subject, and of course they did.  They mentioned something about it being a corruption of the East Anglian term docky for lunch, but that seemed a little farfetched and they didn't push it.  I also glimpsed as I was typing in doggie bag, an entry for doggie style, but in honor of the dignity of The Institute I passed it by.

I suspect it was as Beagles said, originally a real request which became kind of a euphemism to the point where nobody thought of where it originated,  Speaking of euphemisms, my first night in Prague my buddy and I became so choosy about  where we wanted to eat that when we found a place we could both agree on we had to pee like racehorses.  Of course the folks in the restaurant knew English, but it wasn't their first language, and when we asked for the bathroom, you know, the restroom they looked at us blankly.  Finally one of them asked if we meant the toilet and we both nodded our heads and went there to pee like racehorses. In retrospect I imagine they had plenty of American tourists and maybe they were just fucking with us.

There is some thought that here in Chicago that asking for the plate is a way to keep the clientele moving and the money coming in, but it happens so often when there is no clientele waiting that I think they just do it because everybody else does it.  Maybe they think it is the mark of a fine restaurant, like when the waiter hovers by and asks if everything is okay a half dozen times.  I hate that shit.  I guess I could say in a very loud voice, "You don't see me puking do you?" but I guess that would be carrying my protest too far,. 

I don't know what was up with the sister of your friend.  I don't think being on the coasts has anything to do with it.  Maybe she was going somewhere else after the meal and didn't want  to tote it around with her.  What people downtown do a lot is get the doggy bag and then hand it to the first panhandler they see, so that often you pass a panhandler asking you for change with a mouth full of food from a fancy restaurant.

Speaking of the coasts I was flying Southwest out of Chicago a couple years ago and this couple wanted to sit together and some guy surrendered his prized window seat to give them two seats together.  She was impressed, wasn't that nice she murmured to hubby who just grunted, and then she said we really ought to thank him and hubby grunted again, which prompted her to say, "You know, we're not on the east coast anymore."