Note: Kelly Kazek was so busy this week, what with all the new fall TV shows and all, that she couldn’t find time to write a fresh column for you good people. Bless her heart. So she is rerunning this column from 2004, which has thoughts in which she still strongly believes. On the one hand, she is hoping you don’t remember it and it seems shiny and new. On the other hand, she’s hoping it was so brilliant you couldn’t forget it, even after five years. Enjoy!

I am now accepting tips and I don’t mean those along the lines of “Your column stinks.”

I mean the green kind. The kind of tip that goes in the bank. The kind that has me eating my protein calories in steak rather than hamburger.

I’ve placed an empty jar beside my computer marked “Tips.” You can stop by the office any time between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m. and leave a dollar or 20.

Why should you tip me, you ask?

I ask right back: “Why not?”

I am ready to join the ranks of those people — while doing a job they were hired to do and get paid to do — feel the need to ask the general population to supplement their incomes with an extra buck or two, or maybe just the change from a dollar.

These employees, mostly those at coffee shops, food courts or those mini snack counters in book stores, don’t go as far as standing with their hands out after passing a cup of coffee across the counter. No, the hand-lettered T-I-P-S on the cup or jar by the register does it for them.

I was always under the impression that people were tipped for additional services such as bringing a meal to a table or carrying bags to the car. I never thought sliding my peanut butter fudge cookie across the counter was tip-worthy.

What — if I merely paid the price of the cookie but offered no tip, they would make me come around and get the cookie out of the case myself?

Before all you counter service people start calling me with tips that will likely burn my ears, keep in mind I am not speaking from a vacuum at the bottom of an empty tip jar.

I have worked as a waitress (these days the PC job title is “server.”)

It was hard work. In my opinion, no one should be allowed to carry credit cards, graduate from college or become a parent until they have experienced the joys of serving others their hold-the-onions-medium-rare-minus-pickles-and-could-you-put-the-sauce-on-the-side burgers.