The very fact that I’m writing about this should give you some indication that the election season is too long. (Exhales) The question is: Did Hillary’s campaign leave a tip for a waitress at the Maid-Rite restaurant in Toledo? Or did it stiff her of a tip. Who knows? NPR reports:

A waitress causes a stir on the political blogs. The waitress at a Maid-Rite restaurant in Iowa says she did not get a tip after serving presidential hopeful Sen. Hillary Clinton, a Democrat from New York. But the Clinton campaign says a $100 tip was left at the diner…

It started as an aside in a longer interview, but it became an Internet sensation within hours.

Anita Esterday, a waitress at the Maid-Rite in Toledo, Iowa, told NPR’s David Greene in a report that aired on Morning Edition Thursday that “nobody got left a tip” on Oct. 8, when Clinton sat at the lunch counter and ordered up the restaurant’s famous loose-meat sandwich.

Esterday served Clinton, chatted with her and later ended up as an example of a hard-working single mom in Clinton’s stump speech. She told NPR she’s considering voting for Clinton, but was disappointed the senator and her staff didn’t make sure she got a tip for her labor.

The waitress stands by her story, and apparently no one at the restaurant has come out against her about what happened.

A Clinton campaign staffer called on Esterday at the restaurant Thursday after the story aired. The staff member apologized to her and gave her a $20 bill, according to Esterday. The Clinton campaign confirmed that visit. The campaign also produced photocopies of receipts showing $157.46 was paid to Maid-Rite on a VISA card on Oct. 8 for meals consumed by the candidate’s entourage. The tip was supposed to have been paid in cash, and the campaign insisted such a payment was made but has declined to make available a staff member who was present at Maid-Rite and left tip money.

Which leads to the obligatory question: If they already gave her a $100 tip, why would they confirm that they later visited her at the restaurant and apologized? That is, if I’m reading the story correctly. The fact that they can’t actually produce evidence that a tip was left, but confirmed a later visit, is also suspicious.

So, in the end, Esterday would have no reason to lie about Clinton, as she told The New York Times:

“You people are really nuts. There’s kids dying in the war, the price of oil right now — there’s better things in this world to be thinking about than who served Hillary Clinton at Maid-Rite and who got a tip and who didn’t get a tip.”

And so is my first, and last, post on this story.