A Portrait of the Asshole as a Young Man 22

Before the recession, I was a strip club patronizing fool!  (Then the state legislature put a $5 state tax on all covers; fuck outta here!!!)

My peeps and I used to bum rush Dallas Gentlemen's every weekend.

We'd go to Cabaret Royale on the last Tuesday of every month -- customer appreciation night.  Steak, lobster, shrimp, mashed potatoes, broccoli, rolls, cheesecake, chocolate cake.  "Ugh ... you eat at strip clubs?!"  Yes.  I'd eat dinner in the middle of the zoo if it was good and free.

Speaking of the zoo, the most impressive stripper I ever saw climbed a pole, hooked her plastic pumps into the ceiling, and like some overgrown bat creature dazzled us with all kinds of fantastical moves a la Cirque de Soleil.  It could've ended in tragedy but ...

I've had sex with a stripper before.  To be clear, we were already friends.  I bumped into her at a club I didn't even want to go to.  Thanks to her I saw my first ever drag queen show and learned how strippers like to pay for things.  After buying me yet another shot (who was trying to cuckoo who?), I watched her open her purse to reveal a cache of ironed one dollar bills.  You can put that on the shortlist of things I'll recollect right before my death.

I've never been kicked out of a strip club, but I plan to be.

I have a friend who'd never been to a strip club and didn't see the point (this was, like, '03).  He started going with us.  Then he started going without us.  Then he started going during his lunch break.  Then he started taking some of the strippers out to lunch.  It's called evolution, folks.

I contracted food poisoning and got kicked in the head with a stiletto in the same night -- at the same strip club.  I haven't been back to Silver City since the night -- or morning, I guess -- when they served the most suspect breakfast ever.  (Truth told, I should've avoided the ham).  I was so wobbly drunk that when the stripper starting doing windmills I couldn't help but lean forward like Don Quijote set to do battle.  And that's when it hit me ...

Literally.

I'd like to work at a strip club for a time, be the littlest bouncer -- Patrick Swayze in Road House.  "Sir, I'm only gonna ask you three more times to keep your hands to yourself."  Perfect.