No more strippers. Ever. Ever.

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So I recently was charged with planning a bachelorette party for one of my girlfriends. None of the bridesmaids involved in the planning lived in the city where the party had to take place and none of us lived near each other, so it was a bit of a challenge to coordinate the logistics.

We figured it’d be simple: Find a dance club or a strip club (although I used to be a stripper myself, I’m not a fan of male dancers ;), pile a bunch of ladies in a car and call it a nite… But after we called around a bit we found that there were no male strip clubs — or is it female strip clubs (not sure what you would call a club where men dance — is it a male strip club because the dancers are male, or a female strip club because it’s primarily for women… who knows?…) Anyway, there were tons of places to see dancing girls, but none for boys.

Now we gotta find a freelance wardrobe-removal consultant (I believe that’s the proper PC term for this career) So naturally we turned to Myspace… The rate wasn’t outrageous — $200 for a private show — so I said sure let’s go for it, and we locked it in.

We rented a suite for the nite, bought a bunch of liquor, and had the bride convinced that we weren’t gonna do anything wild — just drink, listen to music and hang out on her next to last nite of single-ness ;) Dude was scheduled to arrive around 10:30 but he didn’t show up until well after 11. Then when he came to the door, he was still in his street clothes — no cop or electrician or room service uniform. Just a dude in jeans with a suitcase. Totally ruined the surprise “Where do I change?” he asked.

“Really?” I shouted back. Continue reading →

I didn’t really respect strippers until I became one…

I spent this weekend in New York City. One of my very best girlfriends is getting married and we went up for her bachelorette weekend. The whole trip was pure hilarity, but I’ll start with the train ride from Jersey into the city… I was wearing one of my favorite t-shirts. It’s black and it has a picture of a cute little bumble bee and then it says “–atch” so if you put it together, it spells… well you know. My girlfriends and I made nice with a handsome conductor on the train who was having a bad day. His name was J.M. McGinty. I know that because it was embroidered on his jacket. I kept referring to him by his whole name because it seemed to lift his spirits. Finally he came by one last time to punch our tickets and I said, “Thank you very much J.M. McGinty.” and he said, “You’re welcome, B–atch…” Oh man, that was the funniest thing that’s happened to me so far in 2006. Check mate, J.M. Check mate.

Once we got into the city, our very first activity was a two-hour exotic dance class – complete with boas, pimp hats, high heels and — you guessed it… poles. I’m gonna give you a minute to digest that. ME on a POLE…

You ready? OK, so I’ll go on. The instructor was so matter of fact about everything she told us to do, it was like she didn’t realize that we didn’t all strip for a living. “Flutter your eyelids… Make a pouty-kissy-face… Raise your eyebrows… Work your shoulders…” At one point I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I looked like I was having a seizure. Those who KNOW know that I don’t have a great deal of dance skill. I’m good on rhythm but I’m definitely a two-stepper if you know what I mean, plus I was the largest woman in the class, I had on a pair of heels way higher than I would ever wear in real life and I was really, really sober, so you can imagine how awkward I felt. After we learned how to work the boas, unbutton our shirts and toss them with reckless abandon it was pole time. OH YEAH! Easily the most hilarious part of the evening, my time spent on the pole helped me to gain a new respect for strippers. Those girls are vicious. It is really hard to get up on that thing and swing like that. The next morning we were all bruised and sore. For real, next time you go out and you see a girl doing some good pole work, give her a nice tip AND a pat on the back. She’s working hard for the money.

After we went back to the hotel to shower and change it was off to the club and one of those totally “Sex and the City” experiences that you can only have in NYC. We’re standing outside of the hotel about to hail a cab when this stretch limo pulls up and says, “Need a ride?” Are you serious? So we all pile in and head for Duvet. We tell the driver to pull right up to the front door and we get out like movie stars. The line was down the block and they were only letting ladies in for free for another 15 minutes so when the door man told us we needed to go to the back of the line, we looked like BROKE movie stars. We eventually did some politicking and got in without waiting in the line — thank goodness we had just learned how to flutter our eyelids and unbutton our shirts. HA! We ended up having a great weekend and I think I got at least 5 good new minutes out of it… Well worth the trip.