I was getting ready in the dressing room last night, unavoidably eavesdropping on the chattering of two new girls. The wide-eyed one was complaining about how much she was spending in gas commuting from Olympia to work at this club, which the one who looked like a frumpy high school volleyball player was sympathetic to. Then the conversation moved on to the chipper exchanging of makeup tips, some of which tall girl credited to the Tyra Banks Show.
Wide-eyed girl announced to the tall girl that she had only been doing “this” for a week and a half, and the tall girl boasted that she had been stripping for three months, which impressed wide-eyed girl enough that she gave that a “wow” followed by a moment of silence. I was the only other girl in there, and wondered to myself how impressed they would be if I told them I had been stripping for six years. There was no way I was going to let them know this and have to start answering all the questions about stripping that had arisen for them.
Tall girl had complimented me on what a great idea it was to bring a scarf to set on my disgusting dressing room chair, but other than that I was still sort of trying to be invisible and was studiously applying makeup.
When they started talking about pole tricks, wide-eyed girl explained to tall girl that she couldn’t do pole tricks on account of the way her thighs didn’t touch, or something like that, and insisted that tall girl look at her thighs. They both talked disappointedly about how they couldn’t do pole tricks yet as I sat there thinking that ultimately, it doesn’t matter. Then tall girl turned to me and said, “You can climb the pole, right?”
“Yeah.”
“So you need to use the bottom of your foot, right?”
What? What was she talking about? Who had misguided her like this?
“Well, I mean, you can use your shoes to stick to the pole.”
“But what about the bottom of your foot?”
“What about your thighs?” the second girl chimed in, “because my thighs make it so that I can’t climb the pole. You need to use your thighs, right?”
“Well yes, sort of, I mean, eventually you should be able to basically just climb the pole using your arm strength. But you use your legs and shoes to stick, too…” I thought they were kind of cute actually, and it was flattering, but I didn’t want them to think they could start coming to me for advice. I wasn’t put out, really, it was just that they were like helpless tourists in a world that I have been living in for years.
Another dancer entered the dressing room from the private dance area and tall girl exclaimed, “Omigod, I have the same outfit!” I glanced at the outfit in the mirror and recognized it as a Leg Avenue packet right away. It was sheer with belled out sleeves. Every new dancer gets that outfit, duh. The new girls had turned their attention to Leg Avenue chick, and I was able to slip out to the floor and get started for the night.