I was in Los Angeles last week for business and wanted to do what every successful businessman does when on the road. Unfortunately, I don’t have a wife and kids to cheat on so I had to settle for the next best thing: the Strip Club. Luckily, I was in the porn capital of the world and only needed to walk across the street from my hotel past a Carl’s Jr. to find corporate happiness.
Entering the Gentlemen’s Club, I felt like I was in fifth grade and just heard my teacher casually pronounce “PENIS” for the first time in Health Class. I could not stop giggling. After paying the $11 cover and ordering a $6.50 one drink minimum Red Bull (L.A. strip clubs don’t serve alcohol), I immediately regretted the “No Camera” rule. But it wasn’t the naked teenagers on stage with the fake implants and absentee father relationships I wanted to take pictures of. It was the faces of the men around me who ranged in diversity from a 21-year-old alone in a wheelchair tossing dozens of $5 bills at his favorite dancer to a 40-year-old, overweight, bald man, drinking an O’Doul’s and frantically searching his wallet to see how many lap dances he could afford on his minimum wage job as a Sales Associate at Staples.
In terms of being aroused, I was more focused on the 65 cent bag of Skittles in the vending machine across from me than the girls on stage who once failed Sophomore English. The DJ was spinning a surprisingly great 90’s playlist with the names “Sugar,” “Candy,” and “Lollipop” echoing over the lyrics of Eddie Vedder and Sugar Ray for each new dance.
After watching a trio of the best looking girls in the club shamelessly picking up their rewards off the stage that would make them the Queens of the McDonald’s Dollar Menu, the DJ introduced a new adult entertainer that I joked was the “Diabetes” to the aforementioned “Sugar” and “Candy.”
The front row instantly scattered to the bar for non-alcoholic cocktails and 15 feet in front of me was a dull, sad looking girl with signs of stretch marks, upside down on a pole looking out into an empty room and wishing that condoms were more than 98% effective.
For reasons unknown, a great sense of pity swallowed me and I needed to save this girl. I was going to be the United States Government and she was going to be AIG. My crisp set of dollar bills were needed to save the economy and pay for her bastard child’s health insurance. I approached the empty stage and let my first two dollar bills come down like rain as I snapped my wrist like years of tennis lessons taught me. Seeing that she might now have enough gas money to drive home, her six inch platform heels and butterfly pelvic tattoos came at me like a homeless guy searching a pay phone for quarters. Our eyes met as she bent over in front of me and began stretching her hamstrings with her legs spread as if to tell me she once won the Presidential Fitness Award in Middle School.
Unfamiliar with how to fill such an uncomfortable and awkward silence, my new charity case broke the tension by whispering in my ear, “Do you like my pussy?”, sounding like someone who had rehearsed the line hundreds of times in the mirror while brushing her teeth before going to bed.
“It’s better than the Internet,” I shouted trying to sound like a kid who had hidden his porn collection on the family computer under the created folder, “Homework.”
With a mix of emotions from amusement to sadness to depression, I fed her the last of my dollar bills that I could only hope might turn into a box of Kraft Mac n’ Cheese for her son later that night. Nirvana’s “Teen Spirit” slowly faded from the speakers as the girl I would forever call “Diabetes” thanked me for my kindness.
Lying in my hotel room later that night after ruining another clean towel, I felt good about myself. I had served a purpose. I had helped someone in need. But maybe next time I’ll just donate to the “Red Cross” and my employer might match the contribution.
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