Lobster appeared.

Premium steaks appeared, the aged ones, the ones with a market price the waiter had to recite from memory.

Thirty-dollar cocktails, bottles of wine chosen by the length of the name, desserts no one finished, appetizers ordered in threes because why not.

I watched people who ordered carefully and sensibly when their own card was on the line transform, in the space of one seating, into connoisseurs of everything expensive the moment the connoisseurship was free.

Nobody at that table had expensive taste on their own dime.