RUSH: Now, I have been very open, ladies and gentlemen, over the course of years on this program that I have several mistresses out there, and last night, I went to dinner. I stepped out on the mistresses. I went to dinner with a woman, just a friend I hadn’t seen her in a while, and went to the Kobe Club, which is one of my favorite places here. It’s the great steakhouse that’s on 58th between 5th and 6th Avenue; I’ve described it many times, the Jeffrey Chodorow restaurant, and after a couple hours, pretty loud and so forth, and when they brought the bill, the way they bring the bill is they put the bill on a block of wood and they stab it with a steak knife. Pshew! They put it there. So it happened that was on my right at the table. So I reach over and I’m pulling the knife out of the bill and looking at the bill, and when I turn to my left, I see a credit card on the table. Yes! I had reached into my pocket and got my credit card out. I was ready to start calculating the gratuity and then sign it. I looked at that credit card, and I looked at the woman, and I said, ‘What is that? What the hell is that!’
She said, ‘Well, I… Duh… I…’ and stuttered around.
I said to myself, ‘What is going on here? Is she offering to pay for the whole thing? Does she want to pay for her share?’
Regardless, this hasn’t happened to me before. Maybe I’m too old-fashioned and maybe I don’t get this, but to me this was the equivalent of in the 1970s being told by a woman (nasty feminist impression), ‘You don’t need to open that door for me! I can get it myself!’ I said, ‘What is this?’ I stared at that credit card and I started laughing uncontrollably. I said, ‘Put that away. What is this?’ I was running it by Cookie today. I said, ‘What the hell could this possibly mean?’
She said, ‘You know, Rush, you’re just too old-fashioned. This is New York. This is the big leagues,’ and — (interruption)
No, there was no ‘asking out.’ It was just dinner. ‘Next time you’re in the city, if you got a few moments,’ I said, and she said okay. I guess I initiated it. Yeah, okay, that is relevant. So I initiated it, and there’s a credit card on the table when the bill comes — and, by the way, it was just a cheap old, average Visa card! (interruption) Well, no, I didn’t want to say anything. It vanished pretty quickly once I said, ‘What the hell is that?’ I stared at the credit card. I looked at her and said, ‘What is this?’ So, anyway, the credit card vanished (laughing) and I took the knife out of the bill and I started calculating the gratuity all over again. I was so nonplused by this that I put the gratuity on the total line (laughing) before I had totaled it all up. So I said, ‘I’m horrible with numbers here.’ Anyway, what do you think this means? What could this have possibly meant? We didn’t have time to indulge in discussion about this. I just told her, ‘My audience is going to hear about this tomorrow,’ and I have my theories. (interruption) What? What? (interruption) Oh, I don’t believe it. See, Cookie thinks that she was treating me. No. No, no, no. No, no. The whole crew is walking in. (interruption) Kathleen… No, because I think she could see the bill. Trust me, here. Treating me? No. (interruption)
Yeah. (interruption) No, no. What I think was, I think this was a subtle attempt. She’s picking up her share, not to be obligated. You know how these feminists are. (interruption) What are you saying, Krehley? What are you…? (interruption) Well, that’s what that… (interruption) Well, you can if you ask for separate checks, but she didn’t do that, so I could be wrong about it. All I know is that hasn’t happened. That has not happened since the ’70s. When I’m out with people, nobody offers to pay anyway. That just doesn’t happen! Nobody throws their credit card out. We could stay another 30 minutes after dinner before a credit card pops up. The bill will be sitting there, and I think, ‘Okay,’ reach into the pocket, and take care of it. People ask me, ‘What did you get for Christmas?’ Nothing! I have fun by giving. So anyway… Well, it remains a mystery, and I’m not going to ask about it. I’m not going to ask, but really, feminism just rears its head at the craziest times. Even if she was trying to pick it up, that was feminism. (interruption) Yes, it was.
Look, Maimone’s right on this, because this thing ended up happening after. It was my initiative. Now I could understand this, if I’d been minding my own business, and she said, ‘Could you abandon your mistresses for a night, because I want to talk to you about some stuff?’ Which she did, by the way. It was sort of business. Then I could have understood the credit card being there. But it didn’t happen that way. Now, I’m probably making a mountain out of a molehill. (interruption) It wasn’t a corporate card! It was a cheap, standard-issue Visa. I was embarrassed to actually have that kind of credit card on the table, a cheap, standard-issue card. This wasn’t even a gold card. This wasn’t even a cheap imitation platinum gold. It was just a standard-issue Visa with probably a credit limit of $800 on it. I was embarrassed for it to be sitting there! (laughing) I don’t know if I’m ever going to see her again. That’s not the point. (interruption) No? (laughing) Probably not now? Well, then I’ve learned something else. (laughing) Cool!
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: All right. Elizabeth in Washington, DC, I’m glad you called. You are up next on the EIB Network. Hello.
CALLER (whispers): Christmas dittos, Rush.
RUSH (whispers): Thank you.
CALLER: I understand the lady and the Visa card. She is obviously a woman of decent reputation who does not want to be mistaken by the restaurant people for one of your
RUSH: (laughter) Look, I’m open to any discussion of possibility, because I still can’t figure it out, and I didn’t ask. All I said is, ‘What the hell is that? Put that away,’ but I didn’t ask for an explanation.