The Stripper Chronicles

I guess it was 2002, and my friend Bill and I were regularly attending softball meetings just before the season started so it had to have been in the Spring. Now you have to understand, Bill's wife had just recently divorced him, and he was on this weird self-destructive binge, but it wasn't alcohol or drugs - it was women... and normally strippers... relatively average and worse looking strippers... with said alcohol or drug problems.

Meetings for softball were on Wednesdays and we kind of had a ritual. He would pick me up from work. We would go to Boonies just past Brewski's into West Virginia, (I believe that's what it was called - it had the "girls, girls, girls" written in Christmas lights on top of it), and have a drink - normally non-alcoholic. The girls weren't dancing because no one was ever there but most times one or two would be hanging out behind the bar. We'd wait there, chat with them or the bartender, maybe play a few slots, then leave when it was time for the meeting to start. The meetings were at Brewski's and afterwards we would pick up dinner then head back to my house to eat with my family. Bill ate with my family almost every night back then. We liked the company and he never cooked at the time.

On this particular Wednesday there was a particular stripper behind the bar who wanted to have her nails done. We had time, so Bill offered to take her to the mall and we'd pick her up after the meeting. She was thrilled and asked us to wait just a couple minutes while she "changed". We did and she hurried upstairs to the apartment above the club and came back looking the same as when she left... except it was perfectly clear that she had done a line of cocaine.

"I'm ready!", as she rubbed her nose and sniffed a bit. She led the way out the door, up a couple of steps to the parking lot. As she got ahead of us I think we both noticed at the same time that she had a hole in her crotch. A huge hole that wasn't in one of those suggestive places just beside any x-rated parts as was stylish at the time. No, this one was squared on her crotch and there was nothing, I mean nothing left to the imagination. She was ready to have her nails done and work a corner quickie without all that pesky time spent removing clothes. Bill and I just laughed about it.

We took her to the mall, dropped her, informed her we'd pick her up in about an hour and a half then left for our meeting. I overheard Bill tell her that they would go to dinner after and didn't really pay much attention to it.

The meeting was finished in about an hour as planned, we picked up pizza and returned to the mall. We couldn't find her right away, so I talked to the girls at Zales about some repairs I was working on for them at Aaron's (I don't think I mentioned that I was a jeweler at the time) while Bill went on a search. He comes back and she's leaning on him pretty heavily. Somehow she found alcohol and lots of it. She's drunk. She stinks like a pile of weed, a new fragrance for her, she didn't smell quite that bad when we dropped her off, and apparently she's hungry. He's consoling her, telling her that everything will be fine and that he's going to get her some dinner as we're crossing center court when she decides to become independent and walk ahead of us.

I look at Bill and the exchange goes something like this:

"What the hell happened to her?"
"I think she found some weed and lots of alcohol."
"We were only gone about an hour. How the hell did she get that much stuff into her in that amount of time and still manage to get her nails done?"
"I'm not sure, but she's hugry, we'd better get her to your house for some pizza before she starts to make a scene." This is where the quote from my profile comes into play in it's full form. I looked at him, incredulously, and said -

"Let me get this straight..." (I had hand motions that apparently made it much funnier because it became an immediate classic in our circle of friends) "Let me get this straight, you wanna bring a drunk, high, stripper with a gigantic hole in her crotch and no panties to my house for dinner to meet my wife and kids!"

"You know, now that you say it that way, it really doesn't seem to be such a great idea as I'd seen it in my head. You're right. I'll drop you off at your house and take her somewhere else for dinner."

"Good idea. Now, don't drop me off in front of my house. I know I may sound paranoid, but it's a big house even though we only rent half. She knows I'm a jeweler and while I don't make a ton of money everyone automatically thinks that jewelers do. The last thing I need is some stripper looking for her next fix breaking into my house to find drug money."

He dropped me about 3 houses past mine and I watched as they left, went home and served my family cold pizza.