My reasons for never having been to a strip club never had anything to do with upstanding morals or judgments or values. Nope. The reason I’d never been to a strip club is it seems like every time it came up as a possibility – someone in my group (always a female) would shoot down the idea, claiming we could go over her dead body or some other threat that would then lead to a “fine, fine, we’ll do something else.”
Last summer Chris and I talked about strip clubs and it turns out he’d never been either. Really? I thought all guys had gone to strip clubs by the time they were in their early 20s. But that sealed it – we had to go together. Susan and Alan agreed, saying they would buy us lap dances. So we tried one night after the other bars closed – and found out the hard way the strip clubs closed at the same time. Bummer!
Summer came and went and other things took priority. We laughed at the name of the Athens strip club – Toppers – and jokingly suggested it to Colleen once, who thought it must be a pizza place. Toppers, get it?
Chris heard talk around town that this was not the cream of the crop as far as strip clubs go. In fact, the reason there was no cover on Monday nights was because that’s when the ugliest girls worked – the girls with [insert favorite deformity joke here.]. Tuesday nights were $1 cover because they were the second-ugliest girls, and so on until you get to Friday or Saturday.
But it just happened to be a quiet Monday evening in Athens when Chris and I were bar hopping a few weeks ago and decided that if we were ever going to stop talking about it and just do it – why not now? We’d been drinking enough at all the other bars that it just seemed like an excellent idea.
Entering the strip club
We walked into the bar and showed our IDs to the girl behind the counter. “This is our first time at a strip club!” I proclaimed tipsily (is that a word?)
“Yeah, we’re here to see the, um, Monday night girls,” Chris added – and I shushed him immediately.
“What was that?” the woman asked.
“Be nice!” I said under my breath.
“What? Haha,” he answered, and we dipped out of her sight before she could toss us out of there.
Made a stop at the ATM for $30 – dances cost $10, so we figured that’s one dance each plus tip money.
Of course, we had no clue what we were actually doing …
The club
We walked inside and my first thought was that we were on set for The Sopranos. I have no idea why the bar reminded me of the strip club on the show so much, but it did. Probably because the stage was right there – I didn’t expect it to be that close. We made a beeline for the bar and ordered beers – that much, we knew how to do. I went to the bathroom after that and Chris said while I was gone a girl came to him and offered him a private dance, which he turned down. Why couldn’t that have happened while I was there? So unfair. I miss everything.
When I got out we took a seat one row back from the stage to try to figure out how this whole thing worked. And what I saw were – the girls were pretty. All this talk about Monday night girls being so ugly and deformed really was uncalled for – they were beautiful girls! So what if most of them have small boobs – is that how beauty is defined? If so, I take offense!
We watched the girls dancing on stage and approaching various people (all guys) to put their boobs in their face. This didn’t really seem all that exciting, so we weren’t jumping at the thought of taking a front-row seat. The money for the lap dances was burning a hole in our pockets but we were rooted in our “safe” seats one row back – neither of us sure what happens next.
What happened next was last call. We were only there about 20 minutes. So we decided to come back another day to spend our lap-dance money, and we slipped out, pretty much unnoticed.
After the club
I think we need to go back to say we’ve really experienced a strip club. I felt too much like I was watching one on TV more than a participant. Next time, we need to go earlier – and next time, we need to bring more money. I was almost scared to ask for anything because of the embarrassment if it costs more than I had! I think Susan and Alan need to accompany, show us the ropes …
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Read Chris’ account of our adventures here.