A couple of really bad shifts

I'm ready to hit the road. This time next week I'll be in the midst of entertaining North Dakota's menfolk. And some womenfolk, believe it or not.

Yesterday morning it was really hard to find downtown parking. I ended up paying $12 for it. And then made $63 on a morning shift! Like Tara said, getting naked for (practically) free will keep you humble. So let us forget that day as if it never happened.

The crazies were out on Monday. So much so that V, the bartender, came around the bar to look at the calender on the side of the register. "Is it a full moon tonight? No, four days. They must be early."

A bad night at Mary's isn't necessarily a bad money night. Sometimes it's just slow, there aren't a lot of customers, but the ones who are there tip, so we don't take it out on them when the bar is just dead. No, a bad night is when there's, say, a group of three men and four women, who sit at their table discussing the performers and not tipping. Any mixed groups are usually terrible tippers, to be honest, unless there's a former or current stripper in the bunch, or other service-industry types. It's the rare group that's as good as the worst bachelor party, sorry to say. But to those that are good, you have no idea how much it delights us. On a bad night we also get some of downtown Portland's local color, like the previously mentioned Invisible Friend Guy. Tonight it was a barely intelligible tall guy in a sweater and a barely intelligible short guy in a t-shirt. They arrived separately but became drinking buddies over the course of the night, sitting in some of the required tipping seats and not tipping.

One of the other dancers on shift tonight, N, is old school. She started stripping before the arrival of table dances in Portland and to this day refuses to do them. If asked, she simply says no. It's a testament to the quality of the stage tips in Portland that one can still make decent money without table dances. Good money, even. It still surprises me. N also expects the customers at the rack to observe proper stageside etiquette, which goes like this: if you're sitting at the stage, you should be tipping the dancer on stage a dollar a song, minimum. That's all we ask for being within 12 inches of naked women, a buck every 3-5 minutes. If you only want to tip certain dancers, or only want to sit at the stage when we're buck naked, hey, it's not great, but it's better than sitting there and not tipping. And sitting anywhere in the bar and staring but not tipping is just annoying and offensive, especially when we get off stage and customers lavish us with compliments but not dollars.

For my sanity and to maintain a decent attitude I tend to assume that people who do not tip at all and yet stare and seemingly enjoy the show are uneducated in the ways of strip club etiquette. Nikki may assume this as well, but will not be so nice when correcting them: "If you are sitting at the rack you need to be tipping." She's not a bitch about it, but if someone's been there for a couple of songs and hasn't ponied up, she will say something, loudly. This should actually be the job of the waitress or bartender, but we have to get their attention first and on nights like this they're dealing with their own nontippers.

Downstairs in the dressing room B and I were dreading our upcoming sets. She'd made one single dollar during one set -- this is pretty much unheard of there. We sat there, she talked on the phone helping to tell her ex-husband's girlfriend how to help get him worker's comp for a horrible accident he'd had at work, and worried about his kids. Which puts the crappy work night into perspective.

I was over the night by 11:30 p.m. Just done. Snapped at some guy. I was at the bar getting water and he said to me, "Hey, you. Go sit with me over there."
"Excuse me?"
"Go sit over there."
"Was that an order? I don't take orders. I didn't hear a please or a would you like to have a drink or anything pleasant."
And turned and went to the dressing room.

During my last set I had another non-tipper at the rack. I knelt at the end of the stage and motioned him to lean in. "Hey, honey, if you're going to sit at the rack you need to tip."
"I threw a ten up there for you," he said. I vaguely remembered a ten and some fives I'd scooped up, and apologize. For about thirty seconds I felt bad about this until I realized he was full of shit and the lone $10 came from some smiling fat guy who came up from one of the tables. At least it shamed the lying liar into tipping B during her last set.

I want the British guys from Saturday back, the ones that when I told them "Hey, American money is cheap to you. You can tip us really well," started throwing $20s. Or my luck on the slots when I turned the $5 some guy gave me to play beside him into $100 in two minutes. Sometimes I dance for free, sometimes I get money for nothing.