7/2/08

And now we finish up with the strip club story. GM and TTH cycle into their sets again so I'm stuck at the table with NG. GM and TTH have already tapped out my ten original Andrew Jacksons so I have to scrounge up a ten, a five, and five ones to throw NG a table dance. It was an ok dance, better than GM but it still didn’t do anything for me. We all return to the table and I flag down the waitress. I tell her I need to swap out credit cards since the one at the bar is also my ATM card and I “needed” more money. She does that and I head across the bar to the head and the ATM. As I'm crossing in front of the main stage, I see a friend of mine and her husband sitting at a table. She says she was just about to text me to see if I'd come up and join them. “I’m already here,” I tell her. I point to the table and say, “Yeah, I've got three dancers and a friggin’ bottle of champagne. It’s going to be an expensive night.” They laugh at me and I continue on to the bathroom. I pee then get another $200.00 out of the ATM. I throw out a few more table dances and notice that GM hasn’t returned from her latest set. I see her working some other chump out of cash and just have to laugh. Of course now that I think about it, there was some tension between TTH and GM in the last set of table dances. Perhaps there was a catfight that I missed. Don’t know, don’t care. Soon, another dancer joins us and gets in on the drinking tab. And by that I don’t mean she was drinking Coca-Cola’s diet soda from the seventies and eighties, “Tab,” I mean she started drinking on my bar tab. I will give them this, they did always ask if it was alright to order another drink, or shot, or whatever. TTH invites my friends to join us and we all sit and drink and watch stuff happen for a while. TTH keeps hinting at the two of us going to her place. I won’t commit to anything and only halfheartedly ask if she needs a ride home. She keeps calling her “uncle” to come get her at 0200 h. At some point she asks for my phone number so ill have hers and can call her. I tell her my number and she calls it. I enter her name but don’t ever say I'm going to call. I'll leave it in there so I’ll know it’s her if she ever calls me. I'm not holding my breath. My friends from the real world leave and I start to try and pull it back so I can get out as well. I admit to being out of money but the dancers stay. Well most of them stay, it may have been this point when GM left I'm not 100% sure. TTH convinced me to get another bottle of champagne by saying she’d give me three free table dances. Well, that knocked $60.00 off the bottle, sort of, so I went ahead with it. I'm sure she got a cut of the profits from each bottle and that's why she was pushing for it. We drink and stuff until 0145 h when they call “last call.” I ask the waitress to close out my tab. She brings it while TTH is giving me my last table dance. She’s crying because she got stiffed by another table, which is possible I suppose but I imagine they were playing me. She shows me the receipt and asks how much I want to add for a tip. Ok, now here’s where I go ahead and admit how much I actually blew that night. I wasn’t sure if I was going to tell y'all, but I guess I will go ahead. The tab was $466.00, I said to round it up to five. She slumped a little so I said five fifty. She smiled and said thanks. I signed the receipt on TTH’s ass and handed it over. The lights came up and we said our goodbyes. I pass GM on my way out and she hugs me and asks if I'll ever be back. I say I will, of course it might be another twenty years. I leave and begin to tally up the cost of the evening. In addition to the $75.00 or so I started out with, I added the initial $200.00 plus a $2.00 ATM fee. Another ATM trip got me an additional $200.00 plus a $5.50 fee. Then the $550.00 bar tab brought the grand total to $1032.50, a personal high. So, the lesson learned was: “Don’t settle for inter-collegiate flag football second string when there is a Varsity, or even a professional, team around the corner. It is just as expensive, if not more so.” We’ll see what happens in another six months or so when I save up enough to try again. By the way, those $150.00 bottles of Andre Peach Passion “champagne” retail for $4.00 to $6.00 each.