Picking up a Girl, Part 2: Bad History

This story begins here: Picking up a Girl, Part 1: Good Beginnings.

I picked up a stranger for the first time, in a sub shop, and it turns out to be stripper.

Why is that particularly ironic?

Because that following day was not my first date with a stripper.

I have a bad history with strippers, who prefer the euphemism, dancers. But don't get the wrong idea, I do not frequent strip clubs. No, really!

Ok, I went to strip clubs for almost every bachelor party I've attended or thrown, that's true. But I rarely went on my own. Despite this, I've had bad history with dating strippers!

I was twenty-something and fogged in the airport. A very attractive blonde girl was there also and struck up a conversation with me. She asks me out to dinner, so, what the hell, we do that. When the last flights were cancelled, she suggests we room together. I have a relationship with her. Turns out she is a dancer. Turns out she is married. Turns out the person she introduced as her brother, with whom I had drinks, was her husband. And don't even ask me how I found out. I'm still scarred! ;-)

I didn't go to a strip club on my own for a while after that.

Some years later, I went to a club in Las Vegas after CES. I met a girl there on a fairly dead day shift named Jenn, another willowy blonde. She asked me out, too. We had a lot of fun in Vegas, and then in Los Angeles. Then she got into a terrible car accident. I helped her out with her hospital situation, but she got very messed up about it and moved without leaving any forwarding information. Even her friend in Vegas I knew was in the dark.

Some years after that I went to a different club in Seattle. For almost two months I went as much as twice weekly during the day shift. Toward the end of that time I met Dina. I saw her three times before I was pulled out of town. When I returned a few months later, she asked me out. I brought a camera and we went to a park. We had a torrid and very serious relationship. She was beautiful. She was fun. She was a drug user. So I put her through rehab. Several times. It ended very badly, the only relationship I've been in where I was physically abused by pots, pans, and even a vase. (I've been abused by ex-boyfriends, but not the gal.)

Another year passes and I go to the same club. Literally the first day I am back I meet another gal, Daniela. We trade email addresses. We correspond. She asks me out. I cut it off early, but a strange thing happens. Word about me gets back to Dina. She contacts me and she asks to get together again. We do, but it's still bad. She's still a user. That story doesn't have a good ending either.

So I've had maybe a dozen or so solo visits to a strip club, and I've been asked out by four dancers. Friends might ask, "What is your secret?" Well, if I had a secret, I'd only bless my enemies with it. If there is a god of karmic justice, she's killing me with her two-edged sword of lust.

Ok, now you can imagine the scene: I've just finally figured out that Cameron doesn't work at a gas station. That she's a dancer. All this is rushing through my head... so let's rejoin the scene:

"You think I work at the gas station." she states. I nod. "I don't. I work at the strip club next to it."

"Strip club?" I echo, dumbstruck.

So... I picked up a stranger for the first time, in a sub shop, and it turns out to be a stripper.

"Yes, silly. You didn't really think I pump gas, did you?" she smiles at me.

"Oh." I am reduced mostly to monosyllables. She leaves to work, reminding me to call her the next day. I am left contemplating good beginnings and bad history, and speculating about what happens next (in part 3).