Splitting the bill with other folks when you go out to dinner can be…complicated.

And this couple found that life lesson out the hard way!

But did they sit around and let bygones be bygones?

Heck no!

They got petty revenge!

Read on and find out what happened.

Revenge is a dish best served with a separate check.

“Over a decade or so ago when my wife (65F) and I (60M) lived in upstate New York, we lived across the road from a nice older couple that were at least a dozen or so years senior to my wife.

So we were both obviously younger at the time. While I’m out talking across the road from him, “Joey” (we’ll call him) and “Linda” decided it was time that they invite the neighbors out to dinner.

Sure, why not?

We both figured we weren’t being social enough in the neighborhood and it’s good to have friendly neighbors, so we accepted with our mistaken intent.

First time was a Friday evening, we were both coming directly from work, so we met at the local Italian place he raved about. One thing to know about my wife and I are that we’re not huge eaters and generally don’t drink when out because, well, driving and my wife isn’t crazy about alcohol.

So we order modestly and our arrangement was to just split the bill. We order just mains and one starter my wife and I would share with them. They decide to go full bore, starting with drinks, each orders a starter, then go for mains, and desserts to top it off.

Hmmm…

We quickly figured out we were getting screwed on this deal, so we ordered desserts and the bill came in. They forked over exactly half. Plus tipping on the low side. We picked up the rest. Not too pleased with it, but we endured and it wasn’t extremely expensive so we let it slide and knew the lay of the land.

Next time a few weeks hence, we drove together to a place along the Hudson River and already knew that we were taking the hit on this so I pulled Joey aside and said, “Hey, we’ll keep an eye on the check and chip in our share because we’re light eaters.”

Joey looked confused but caught on and begrudgingly agreed. Dinner went a little better this time and the next when he decided on The Chart House (and anyone who’s been knows it’s a bit pricey).

But each time it became a contention as to how much we really owed, and my wife would give in and we’d kick in closer to half and make up the tip.

The next time, he decided that we should try this place that was more on the $$$$ scale, so when our waiter addressed our table, we ordered beverages and I excused myself to the restroom, then returned after a few minutes trying to hold back my Cheshire Cat grin.

So dinner goes through our starters, mains, desserts, with Joey and Linda going duly overboard in their orders thinking that they’d show us how this was done. After an admittedly good meal, our waiter finally comes with their check.

Uh oh!

And ours.

And the look of total horror on their faces was priceless since they hadn’t realized that I’d arranged for our check to be tallied separately from theirs, and apparently theirs was more than double ours.

Joey had this priceless look of fury and a face that was beet red with anger knowing that we totally got the upper hand and weren’t feeding into his discounted dinners.

It was some months later, after some chatting across the road, that he decided to try dinner again, and as usual we said we’d meet him at the venue since we were coming from opposite directions due to other plans.

Actually meeting them was a comedy of faked lost cell phone signals, stopped traffic on the Major Deegan or Cross Bronx or a slog across the Tappan Zee, until we finally said “You’d better just go ahead and order, not sure when we’d actually get there.”

To this day I don’t know if they actually ate at that restaurant that night.”

Now let’s see what readers thought about this.

This person weighed in.

Another individual spoke up.

This Reddit user didn’t hold back.

And another reader has an idea…

I have a feeling these couples won’t be meeting up for any dinner dates anytime soon…

If you liked that post, check this one about a guy who got revenge on his condo by making his own Christmas light rules.