Ohmigosh - be careful because this can become quite an uncontrollable monster! My mother is totally embarrassing to dine out with because she takes anything edible that's on the table! This may have started for her, too, as just taking a few extra napkins, but by the time she hit mid-life, it had progressed to taking sugar packets, jelly packs, every biscuit left in the biscuit basket (although granted those aren't reusable by anyone else), etc. Although I love her dearly, I really can't stand to dine out with her! I have to agree with the other poster who said that taking "extras" at a restaurant is akin to stealing. When we were very young, my mother probably did have to really pinch pennies to make ends meet, but I doubt things were ever so desperate that she had to resort to counting on restaurants to supply our ketchup! If things were that tight, we wouldn't have had money to eat out I would think. As an aside, when I go to my mother's house to visit, I conduct secret missions to rid her refrigerator of 10-yr. old ketchup packets and mini creamer containers.

Beware this beast!

-Blue
attempting to sabotage Mom's bad habits since 1902