SIOUX FALLS CAN KISS MY ASS

last night was a doozy. there were 15 girls working in the little tiny one-stage club. the shift is 9 hours, so with that many girls, each girl only does 3 stage sets all night. fine by me, as you're lucky to make any money on stage at all, and each dollar entails rubbing your tits directly onto a customer's face and then holding your g-string out for them to tuck a dollar. sometimes even when you do that, the customer declines to tip. infuriating. the girl who made the most stage tips, a voluptuous curly-haired brunette from england, actually made out with each customer, literally rubbed her face all over theirs and open-mouthed kissed them.

the club was super dead all night long. girls were moping around looking for a place to sit, as at many points in the night there were more girls than customers. whenever a girl would get up from sitting with a cheap-ass customer (i.e. give up on getting any dances out of him), another girl would immediately plop down in the still-warm seat and turn on the desperate charm. it felt like a fucked up game of musical chairs.

most of the girls seemed to be having a really hard time making money. from what i could tell, the club's top earner was a 45 year-old MILF from fargo. she was really nice, and pretty too. classic bone structure, big doe eyes. she has the same birthday as me, so of course we liked each other right away. she was pretty old for a stripper, i mean i think you can still be super sexual and hot at 45, but it's a little surprising to still be stripping. when i first met her, it never occurred to me that she'd be raking in the bucks. she just seemed so totally drunk and train-wrecky. but she had a lot of regulars and was in the VIP literally all night long, every night. mostly old guys whose laps her ass had probably been gracing since about 1985. at least one half of the guys i approached on any of the nights i was there told me, "oh honey you're cute as a button but i'm waiting to spend time with barb."

barb had a real take-charge attitude about her. lots of vague unsolicited advice like "keep your chin up," as though keeping one's chin up was going to make any customers materialize. one afternoon when we were all putting on our makeup, barb said, "whose flat iron is smoking?" i hadn't smelled smoke, but right then i began to. it was a burning plastic smell. we couldn't find where it was coming from, but then it just started billowing from the ceiling in huge toxic clouds. barb said, "okay everybody: stop what you're doing. put your coats on, we are going to evacuate. i'll call the fire department." so we did. i mean, there was suddenly just SO MUCH SMOKE.

so. we went outside. a bunch of fire trucks came. firemen tramped around the building and onto the roof, looking for the fire. turns out it was something to do with the club's brand new heating unit. eventually we went back inside, but while we were out, i had the opportunity to see many of my new co-workers in daylight. there was a pair of english girls in for the week. they were both very intense looking inside the dark club, and they were 10x MORE INTENSE in daylight. the brunette looked okay. orange face, but okay. the blonde, however, looked downright NUTS. like a caricature of an ugly girl in a hollywood romantic comedy high-school flashback scene before she later becomes all hot. super awkward, chubby 35 year-old in full pre-teen barbie makeup. orange foundation and robin's egg blue eyeshadow. tiny close-set eyes totally obscured by fake lashes on top and bottom, bulbous nose, tiny thin down-turned lips totally over-drawn with neon pink lipstick. wild. just WILD. you want to know something, though? she seemed to be the club's #2 top earner. she'd sit with a guy for a minute, whisper in his ear a bunch, and then whisk him off to the VIP. lord only knows what her sell was. i don't mean to be a bitch, she seemed nice and all, but it was just surprising to see someone so conventionally unattractive having so much good luck in the club.

i, personally, was having terrible luck. so many lascivious time-wasters. one guy seemed promising but then he started talking about how much he disliked that the club had two black girls working. only he didn't say "black girls," he another word that i don't even want to write. he said they were just too pushy and they should go somewhere where their own people were. i said, "well isn't this the only strip club in town?" he said, "well maybe they shouldn't be IN this town at all." ...next.

then i danced for a guy for a while who seemed a little creepy, but polite. until he said, "you know, i'm very very wealthy." i said, "haha then maybe you should start tipping for these lapdances." he said, "well. i didn't become this wealthy by giving my money away to every little money-grubbing whore i meet." LOVELY. ...next.

the next guy was okay. until he told me he, too, was super wealthy, and that his personal fortune came from being one of the pioneering masterminds of genetically engineered chickens. GROSS.

THEN i sat at the bar for a while with a guy who seemed nice at first till he started telling me what a long time he'd been coming to the club, and how he has nicknames for everyone. he calls the giant black security guard "Big Nig." i gasped a little when he told me that. i said, "you are not serious. do you think he likes you to call him that? that's pretty fucked up." and he said, "oh we go way back. he loves it." sick.

then i just went into the dressing room for a good long time. i counted my money and realized i really had no choice but to get back on the floor. i danced for a couple of rich entitled farmboys. and then trolled around pointlessly for another hour till it was time to go to bed.

it was supposed to be super busy because of pheasant hunting season, but where were the hunters?! i only met 3 or 4. all the rest were rude locals. i just felt more and more like i was wasting my life in that club. 9 and a half hours is such a long shift. and the place was too dark, i hated it there. when we finally got off work and were walking across the street to the hotel, i had the overwhelming feeling like this HAD to be the last time i worked there. i knew it would get busier over the weekend, but i just didn't want to see that club or any of the people in it EVER AGAIN.

so i paid a ridiculous amount of money to change my ticket. and i'm writing this in the denver airport on a stopover on my way back to portland. i miss my town, my friends, my life. i even miss my club! a lot! xo andi.