I’d say Christmas Day is one of the more interesting times to strip. I would estimate that between 80 and 90 percent of strippers have children and most people with children stay home with their children on Christmas Day. This was the case with most strippers so our entire work force was nearly wiped out. Single stripping mothers spent the day with their beautiful crowd of illegitimate children unwrapping mountains of brand new toys. (Or maybe just mole hills this year? There is a recession, if you haven’t heard.) A few put the kids to bed and came out to get naked for lonely tourists.
I spent Christmas Day asleep by myself before going to work. I didn’t get any presents because I’m naughty, apparently. Or just a bitch. I sensed varying degrees of pity in each voice when I told people how I spent the day alone. There was no making merry or eating whatever traditional rich food is served on Christmas. It’s Thanksgiving: The Sequel, isn’t it? I think it’s an overrated consumer holiday and I chose to spend it alone before work. Bah humbug. But honestly, I don’t knock the people who enjoy it. I used to enjoy Christmas. As a child, before my heart was two sizes too small, I really enjoyed brittle pine needles poking me in the bare feet every time I walked by the Christmas tree. I enjoyed being ordered to smile through tears while being forced to pose for family photos. I was a happy kid.
So on the night of Christmas, as an adult in Las Vegas, I kissed my dog goodbye and went to work. There were four strippers and fewer customers when I showed up around 10 p.m. I wanted to duck out. Another $2 night would have killed me. Going to the gym sounded like a better plan at that point. Hell, stabbing myself in the eye with a dull pencil sounded like a better plan at that point. Eyeballs are challenging to stab because they’re so thick and rubbery. You might scratch the cornea but it’s hard to get all the way through. Anyway, I was dying to duck out but my non-mother stripper friend showed up and twisted my arm into staying. It was something to write about, I suppose.
I was sufficiently festive for work. I wore red. Actually, I wore that red dress you see in the upper left hand corner of the Stripped blog page. I wore it for about half an hour. It never falls right and I’m always pulling at it and otherwise fidgeting with it. “You look like you stole something,” a customer once commented after sitting with me while I anxiously adjusted that dress and then readjusted and readjusted again. The Red Bull may have been a partial culprit but that beast of a garment was mostly to blame. I should throw it out but I wouldn’t know where to leave it. Anyone want to buy it? The white stains are probably toothpaste.
Anyway, an important thing to remember in sales is a customer’s name. It personalizes the experience. I think to myself, “Nice to meet you, Tom with strange glasses,” or Harry with short arms, or Dick with a facial scar. “You remembered!” a pleasantly surprised customer would respond, sometimes with a high five. Christmas night was the advanced test for my name-memorization skills. Later in the night we got a rush of foreign tourists. There were groups from India, Cuba, England and China. A good number of tourists had names that I’ve never heard and certainly haven’t vocalized. It was a test in memorizing a pattern of syllables and assigning it to a person. All night, I only gave lap dances to foreign customers. A pleasant thing about a language barrier is that they can’t tell how bad I am at small talk. It turned out to be a decent night. Like Thanksgiving: the Sequel, Christmas Day was lonely but profitable.
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