A Lap Dance Is So Much Better When The Stripper Is Crying.

At least, that's what the immortal Jimmy Pop Ali of The Bloodhound Gang once said... and if he said it, then it must be true, musn't it? Well I have to say, so far, I personally have never received a lap dance from a crying stripper. In fact, I've only been to a strip club a grand total of three times in my entire life, and I'm not enitrely sure the first two should really count.

My first two experiences at strip clubs were actually at the same place. Cafe Risque. Does that place even count as a strip club? I dunno... Let's take a look at how those two visits came to be, shall we?

Step back with me, folks, to the year nineteen hundred and ninety seven. Three years before y2k and about two months after my eighteenth birthday.

Actually... now that I'm about to tell the story, I realize that it's not that great. I mean, basically, I was driving back up to Gainesville from Cape Coral with JTrain and Crafty and we were talking about where to stop for dinner. We just happened to be passing one of the many billboards for Cafe Risque when Crafty brought that topic up for discussion, so I blurted out Cafe Risque. Crafty thought that was a good idea. JTrain was only 17 at the time. I said, "shucks, I guess we can't go." Crafty was having none of that, though, so we drove back to G'ville, dropped off JTrain, then went back down to the Cafe.

There was a six dollar cover and a two drink minimum. Since we were both 18, we ordered cheese sticks.

They were pretty good. A bit overpriced, if I remember correctly, but even still, they were the most memorable part of the trip. My general description of the place after that first visit was "A Waffle House with topless servers." And I'm not sure about any of the Waffle Houses you've ever been to, but I can tell you that I do NOT want to see those servers topless. gross.

I know what you're thinking.

You're thinking that if the place was so bad, why'd you go back?

There's a reason, I promise.

Flash forward a few months after my first trip. I'm back in Gainesville and JTrain has a friend of the family up visiting for a weekend. We'll call him Louie. Louie got in town on Friday night. When asked what he wanted to do, all he would say is "Go to Cafe Risque." That was it. That's all he wanted to do. After two days of having him beg me to go with him (JTrain was still too young to go) I finally gave in on Sunday night.

This time was a little better. A Lot better, actually, but only for one reason.

Hold on. Let's step back a second. One of the main reasons I didn't want to go was because I had a Macro Economics test on Monday morning and I REALLY didn't want to spend the time to drive all the way down there and back just to spend money to see below average looking women with no clothes. I finally relented when he agreed to pay for my cover and my dinner as well as let me bring my notes to study.

Yes, I went to a strip club to study for an exam.

Okay, so there we are, sipping on our waters, my nose burried deep in my notes, Louie's nose burried... well, god knows where.... when I feel a hand on my shoulder. There's a pretty good looking chica in a bikini standing over me, peeking over my shoulder at my notes layed out on hte table in front of me.

"You have that test tomorrow too, huh?" she asks.

"umm.... yeah. you?" I stammer.

"Yeah, I studied all day before work..." blah blah blah, etc. etc. etc. I have no idea how the rest of the conversation went, but I thought it was cool that a girl in my Economics class was a stripper.

We only talked for a few minutes and I never saw her again. I tried to look for her during the exam, but couldn't spot her.

Oh well.

But, yeah, that was the extent of my strip club experience.

At least, it was up until my most recent trip to Vegas.

But you know what they say... whatever happens in vegas, stays in vegas.