Strippers for Odin

I spent a year working at a laser tag arena. I’d been working construction and hating it, and was offered a promotion from “dude who takes care of the packs” to “dude who manages the joint.” It was a pretty sweet deal, though the GM got canned weeks into it, and it became a wild stressfest for a while. That’s another story though.

We used codenames at the Tag, because that was part of the schtick for the customers. We hardly ever used real names. And so it came to pass that I went out to party with Odin, to celebrate my promotion.

Hit the rock...hit iiiiiit! Odin COMMANDS you to hit the rock!

Where, oh where, would two men in their early twenties go to celebrate such an occasion? If you answered “the local strip club”, you’d be right. We ventured forth to enjoy ourselves, ready to have a good time. I’m never above objectification of an appreciable bod, though I often try to be respectful about it. A good lech, if you will.

We sat at a table, rather than opting to sit in pervert’s row (the seats at the stage). It would let us do more chatting and ogling, and less having boobs bounced off of our noses. Also, you spend less money at the tables, as it is very bad form to sit at the stage and not tip each dancer. The height of rudeness, that.

We’d been there maybe a half hour when a pair of dancers we’d been watching somewhat closely asked to join us. This is a part of the strip club culture in which you buy the girls drinks, typically watered down, and the bar makes more money off of you. They seemed pretty nice, and were fairly hot. They chatted with us for a good long while, and then their rotation to dance come up, and they left us to our drinks.

Odin and I looked at each other, each raising an eyebrow…neither one had asked for a drink, nor any other monetary hustle. Were we actually just being flirted with honestly? Or set up for a bigger take? Well, we decided to roll with it, whichever way it was going. After all, we were celebrating, and nothing enhances a celebration for a young man like a barely-covered hot girl. Nothing. (Except maybe a not-covered-at-all hot girl, if I’m being honest. Or two.)

We enjoyed the show, being polite young men after all. After they were done, the two blondes came back to our table, and asked if we wanted to shoot some pool. Aha, this must be hustle time. We walked over to the tables, and one of the girls pulled money out of her own garter to buy the game. Whiskey…Tango…Foxtrot? Odin and I shared another secret look…the evening of celebration was definitely taking a turn toward “awesome.” We may have high fived.

The four of us continued to talk, the typical first meet conversation pattering off our tongues. “Where are you from?” “What do you do for a living?” “Married?” “What’s your favorite position?” All the while, we slowly rotated around the pool table, a waltz of pocketing balls, flirting, and bodies just a hair too close for a first meeting anywhere else. We played two games, both paid for from their tips, then went back to the table to chat and drink some more.

And that, my friends, is where the evening decided to take a sharp left turn. You know how you can just be having a good time, and then suddenly something happens that is so freaky that it jerks your grey matter to the side as if there was a sudden shift in gravity? When the Will Riker in your head yells "Shields up! RED ALERT!"? Well, it happened to us.

I don’t even know how the topic came up, but somehow we drifted from laser tag as a job to space exploration, and the girls started telling us all about how the moon landing was a complete hoax. Odin and I shared another look, this one more of shocked disbelief. The girls continued on, spouting all the tinfoil hat theories about Hollywood basements and how they didn’t think we could have gone to the moon at all.

And then it got really crazy. The bar did what is known as an “All Call” for a bachelor party. This is where all the girls go and dance on stage at the same time, with the bachelor in a chair in the center of them. They take turns, typically, humiliating said bachelor in different ways…riding him like a pony, tying him up with his belt, lipsticking his collar, that sort of thing. The two blondes at our table stayed seated.

“Won’t you get in trouble?” Odin asked.

“I’m not dancing for a black man”, the taller one said. “They’re from monkeys and I’m from Adam and Eve.”

My jaw dropped open faster than Kim Kardashian’s panties drop for a sex tape. How many racist conspiracy theorist strippers do you meet on a Thursday night? I just couldn’t believe that such an ugly statement had come out of such a pretty face. I said to her “Do you want me to refute that Biblically or scientifically? Because I have both on deck, babe.”

I proceeded to educate her on how she was a racist idiot. Needless to say, we cut our celebrations short and bid the dopey duo a somewhat less-than-fond farewell. Moral of the story? Sometimes, it is better to admire from afar. Or at least to let more boobs bounce off your nose.