How’s this for tipping?

When you think about giving a tip, what comes to mind?

Are you thinking about maybe offering your wife a little free advice on a more efficient way to organize doing the laundry or cleaning the bathroom? I didn’t think so. You might find yourself tipped into the washing machine or the toilet bowl.

Maybe you are thinking about offering your brother-in-law some advice on how to get the best deal on that new car he is looking at. Only you remember that last time you bought a car you discovered that your buddy at work bought the same automobile and paid $2,000 less for it.

Perhaps you recall the money making tip you gave your best friend to invest in Facebook stock when it went on the market. Make that your former best friend.

Or, do you think of the last time you magnanimously accepted the dinner check and felt your neck and face getting redder and redder as everyone at the table stared at you while you tried to figure the tip in your head without using your fingers to calculate?

None of these may be what comes to mind when you think of giving a tip. That’s fine. But check out what comes to mind when Albert Lexie of Pittsburgh, PA, thinks of giving a tip.

Mr. Lexie is a shoeshine man at the Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh, where he has been shining shoes for $5 a shine for just over 30 years. He says most customers tip him $1 and some $2. Once, he said, a doctor gave him a $50 bill for Christmas.

Guess what. Mr. Lexie gives all of his tip money to the Children’s Hospital Free Care Fund, which helps parents who can’t afford to pay their sick children’s medical costs. So, you might think, that’s nice, but at $1 or $2 a tip is he really giving much?

I think so. A WTAE-TV news story reports that Mr. Lexie has donated more than $200,000. That’s a bunch of tips.

Now, here’s a tip: Even if you and I can only do a small amount, we should do it because over time it will add up to more than we think.

Too often, I fear, many of us fail to give of our money, time or talents because we think what we have to offer is too little. In so doing, we deprive ourselves of the satisfaction of long-term achievement and success and others of the assistance our giving would have provided.

Oh, here’s one final tip. Husbands, if it’s almost dinner time and you don’t smell anything cooking and your wife sweetly says something like, “Anything special you want for dinner, dear?,” don’t respond, “Anything you can whip out of the fridge and throw in the microwave will be fine.” You would be much better advised to say, “Actually, dear, I was just thinking how nice it would be to go out tonight.” The rest of your evening will go much better.