Do the holidays make me sick?

Let me share an interesting fact about my recordkeeping. I'm not the most consistent blogger or journalist, but I do keep pretty good financial records of how much I made and where and when I earned it. So if I am trying to remember when it was I got the flu one winter or when I was out of work sick, I can look for the weeklong gaps in my incoming cash flow.

Some strippers are much more anal about this than I am and create amazing Excel documents breaking down their earnings by the hour and customer. I only break it down by weekly, daily, monthly and annual averages, average earnings by club and by the shift within the club.

I'm under the weather today; I could feel it coming on yesterday morning with a cough and a tickle in the back of my throat and immediately started with the Emergen-C and Super Lysine. I was just now wondering if I got sick after Thanksgiving last year and looked at my records; I wasn't sick. My car went into the shop, I sold some stockings on Ebanned and did some sewing work for a friend, but I wasn't sick. Also, the Sunday after Thanksgiving was four times more lucrative last year than it was this year! The little club was as quiet as could be last night, and that combined with my desire to huddle in the dressing room knitting and feeling ill rather than socialize contributed to one of my lowest-earning nights of the year.

Oh, also, the lightbulb inside the jukebox is busted, so we're using a tiny flashlight to read the track listings when we pick our music. It's pretty funny, standing up there nearly naked and peering into the jukebox with a small, fading flashlight in your hand looking for that Goldfrapp track you want to play.

Thanksgiving was my holiday payoff day this week, thanks to serious understaffing at the big club and one really good customer. Hooray for working on holidays! Though the bonanza is kind of cancelled out by me being ill and not working tonight.

So, T-day customer was enjoying some dances with me when I suggested that he'd really enjoy the VIP room more. He agreed, but needed to use a credit card. Normally this is not a problem at most clubs as they realize that a $250+ purchase may require more cash than typical patrons have on hand, especially if they've been in the club a while (or aren't experienced clubbers and know to hit their own bank's ATM before coming so as to avoid extortionate ATM and credit card service fees). But they must be working out the kinks here, because here's how this went.

Me: "We're going to do a VIP and he wants to put it on his card."
Manager 1: "Well, the only way to do that is to do a cash advance at the bar."
Me: "But he can, right?"
M 1: "Yeah, he has to go to the bar with the card and his ID, though."

Wow, that sounds hard. Forget it, $250 isn't worth that.

So I go get a waitress to come handle this. But she can't. So I ask the bartender. Who directs me to manager 2. Who has to get the customer's ID and card, take it to the office, photocopy it, get the cash, bring it back, hold on to the room fee and my fee for the VIP, and have the customer sign. This process takes at least twenty minutes to complete.

It is not supposed to be this hard to spend money in a strip club. Oh, and they are collecting a 20% service charge on his cash advance, as well. Now, I like that they aren't doing to me what most clubs do, which is taking a 10% bite from my end. I am getting the full fee. But 20% is really, really bad. That's just, well, usurious. I think 5% (or a service charge equal to that charged by the card company) is acceptable. Charging the customer 20% on his cash advance -- on the cash advance he's getting to spend in your club is downright hostile.


And pretty common in most clubs; 10-15% is probably the average. I really, really recommend always taking cash to the club. Don't put lapdances on credit. I mean, I won't stop someone from doing it, believe me, because of course it's worth it, but seriously, use cash. It's smart.

Were I in charge I would seriously streamline this process. The manager himself wouldn't have to come to the damn table; just let the waitress get the card and ID, take it to the manager, bring the cash back. There. Done. Manager or bouncer can collect VIP fee when we check into the room. Simple. Charge at most a 10% fee, preferably 5%, so that the customer doesn't feel that he's being squeezed at every turn. Dude just paid $4.75 for my soda pop, is paying the club $100 an hour to sit on a different couch, and enriching me by $400, part of which will supplement the inadequate salaries of the bouncers and DJs at the club via my tips to them. Make it easier on that customer to spend that money! Does it need to be more obvious?

This guy was so laid back. I was worried he'd get annoyed by the delay and rigamarole of all this, but he stayed pleasant the whole time and was a doll during our VIP. Thanks!

Friday was devoted to football (the embarrassment that was the Texas--A&M game) and a fabulous massage. I do so love my massage therapist; he has done wonders for my body, and is not afraid to do the really hard work. Any dancers in the Portland area, contact me for a referral; he's great with leg and knee issues and also "pole arm," which is the name I've given to the stress you get in your dominant arm that pulls your body weight onto the pole.

Oh! I forgot about this, but one of the nights I was in Missoula I danced for a hottie physical therapy student. I suggested that dancers would be an excellent population to use for a study. He looked at me for a minute, and then said, "I think you've just given me a great idea! I will have to do a thesis next year . . . " So, I really hope he decides to study repetitive stress injuries in dancers relating to pole and stagework, and if he does, I want to hear about it. Yankee Montana transplant, I hope you email me.

I will pass through Missoula again in about three weeks and hit the other club in that town; it's supposedly right next to a truckstop and really a sight. I can't wait.

I am also interested in suggestions on the best kind of long underwear to wear in subzero temperatures as I head back to North Dakota on Saturday. I think I am crazy, but I want a house and they keep paying me well, so into winter I will go.