The Ugliest Stripper in All the World

On Saturday I went to a wedding shower and luncheon for a friend of mine from high school. Later that day we had reservations at Kabuki, followed by bachelorette party time at the lake house.

I’d never been to Kabuki before and we had a great time, even when the chef was busy flipping shrimp tails into my Diet Pepsi. Dude. At least he didn’t flip them into my mixed drink, because that thing was too awesome to be spoiled by shrimp tails.

After quick stops at the ABC store and Kroger, where we bought more alcohol than nine girls could possibly drink in a week, much less an evening, we were off to the lake for fun and games.

I could write about the giant inflatable penis. I could write about the giant inflatable husband. I could give you a tally of just how much I drank (assuming, of course, that I didn’t lose count) and how this is the first time in the entire year of 2004 that I was flat-out drunk. I could write about drinking Malibu rum directly out of an airplane-sized bottle with a straw that had a rubber penis on the end. I could write about how much I suck at Asshole, otherwise known as the easiest card game in the history of card games.

But all of those stories pale in comparison to the story of the ugliest, worst stripper in North America, and possibly the entire world, and maybe even outer space.

I’d heard in passing that one of the members of the bridal party had been tasked with finding a male stripper for the evening, with no luck. At the time, I thought (and probably said aloud), “Whew, good thing – I hope no one else was able to find one.”

I don’t have stripper issues. I don’t have any sort of moral issue with strippers, and if I were dating someone, I wouldn’t feel like I needed to keep the presence of a stripper at a bachelorette party a secret from him, because honestly, I don’t really care about strippers. So I was more like “eh, stripper, whatever” than “Oh my GOD, we can’t have a STRIPPER, that is so WRONG.”

So. After that brief lunch table conversation I kind of forgot all about the whole stripper thing, until it got close to midnight and one of the girls came around whispering to us that if we had any dollar bills, we should get them out and put them in our pockets or something because we’d need them soon. And I was like “aw, crap, they did get a stripper.”

I finally decided I was drunk enough to play along with the whole thing, and I had four dollars in my purse so I stuck them in my jeans pocket and got another drink.

I think it was midnight. Let’s say it was midnight, for the sake of narrative flow. Right around midnight, the front door opens, and in walks our stripper. Except that we thought for a second he was just some guy coming in to use the bathroom or something, until the horrible realization dawned that yes, he really was the stripper.

I think he was probably like 5’2″ or something, because I’m 5’4″ and could look down on the guy. I thought strippers were supposed to dress like cops or pizza guys or some crap, but our stripper was wearing saggy-ass jeans, a blue t-shirt, white Reeboks, and a bunch of fake bling. And he was in his mid-30s, at the youngest, and had almost no hair and a scary, leathery face. The girl who hired him later told us that he was a “construction worker,” but he looked more like an “inmate.”

He went right over to the bride-to-be and started grinding on her, and the rest of us ran shrieking into the furthest corner away from him that we could find. One or two girls decided to get into the whole thing, and the rest of us flung our dollars at them from the back of the huddle.

I guess the stripper eventually felt like it was time to strip, but he didn’t act like he was stripping – it was more like he was changing clothes to go swimming or something. He just kind of took off his shirt, and then took off his jeans. And he tripped over his jeans while trying to get the shoes off. Dude. Shoes first, then pants. Who taught you to undress?

So under that he’s wearing boxers. Just plain old plaid cotton boxer shorts. And eventually he took off the boxers to reveal plain blue cotton Spaulding underwear, like you’d get at Wal*Mart or somewhere. Saggin’ in the butt. Plain old boring underwear.

The rest of his paid time went like this – he’d come grinding toward the huddle, and we’d all try to escape around him to run to another part of the room, and inevitably he’d catch one girl in the process and she’d stand there shrieking while he did the obligatory grind. Then he’d let her go and she’d run back to the pack and he’d catch someone else. And so on.

After he grabbed me and thoroughly creeped me out, I joined a group of girls hiding in the bathroom. We sat in there with the lights off and wondered whether he’d strip all the way down or not. Finally I was the brave one, and cracked the bathroom door open about a millimeter to peek out and see if he was taking anything else off. He wasn’t, so we tried to be good sports and went back to the Huddle of Grossed-Out-Ness until his paid time was finally up, and he left.

And we spent the next half-hour screaming and discussing how completely nasty he was, and vowing to hire a woman the next time around.

It’s supposed to be this big secret, that we had a stripper, but seriously, the whole experience was too bizarre not to share, and you guys don’t know anyone involved anyway.

Seriously. Worst. Stripper. Ever. I’ve seen people look sexier changing into pajamas before bedtime.