Kevin and I were out and about, and driving around the Hawthorne area looking for a parking spot. Destination: Powell’s on Hawthorne.
He pulled onto a side street, and while I was looking at him and saying something, I interrupted myself and pointed out his side window. “She’s a stripper.” He turned, looked, and saw a tall, dark beauty with a crimson swatch in her hair crossing in the middle of the street.
I told Kevin her stage name, and mentioned that she’s on my MySpace friends list. Kevin was interested (though not beyond the bounds of basic curiosity), so after he parked, I pulled out my iPhone and showed him some of her pictures and related what little I know about her. “She’s… well, she’s probably not calling herself a ‘Republican’ anymore, ’cause the Republican Party is in steep decline. But she’s anti-Obama, and pro-gun, and all the other generic Republican talking points. But, damn, she’s got an amazing pair of (as far as I know) natural breasts.”
I joke that spotting strippers in their street clothes is fairly common because Portland is reputed to have a very high ratio of strip club per capita (which urban legend has been examined and found wanting). That means, to me, that any random attractive woman I see is likely to have been, is currently, or will be in the future, a stripper.
But maybe I just see strippers more often because I go to strip clubs a lot? Maybe it’s me? I’m so tuned in to the talent working at the various clubs I frequent, I recognize them more often than regular people?
Last evening, I was riding home on the bus, tired and a bit overwhelmed by the group I had just left (about which I’ll write later). I was sitting in the seat right in front of the rear door, surfing on my iPhone, zoning out. The bell rang, the driver pulled over, the rear door opened, and a voice called out, “Thank you!”
The voice tickled my memory.
That voice was in a normal everyday tone of voice. But the last time I heard it, it was cooing and giggling in an assumed, but entertaining, tone of voice. In fact, the only times I had ever heard it. Or should I say, “heard her.”
I looked out the window, and, sure enough, saw yet another stripper, dressed in normal street clothes, walking down the sidewalk and away from the bus.
It happens nearly every day. Don’t you wish you lived here?