This is exactly what happened on a recent night at Shotgun Willie's (490 South Colorado Boulevard). But this is always what happens to at least one guy in the group when you go to a skin club. On this evening, "Bob" convinced himself that Lexus (or whatever the hell her name was) was hitting on him. And okay, maybe she was, but only because we'd paid her twenty bucks so that she'd do so for the duration of "Sweet Child O' Mine." It was funny until "Bob" was mortally wounded when Lexus wouldn't give him her phone number. It got so bad that he was willing to fight us when we reminded him she was a stripper. "It wasn't about the money, man!"
Some people (all women) might wonder why we were even in such a place. Unfortunately, there are some things only guys can understand. Things like why Bugs Bunny in drag is funny, why you won't ask for directions, how to watch two channels and carry on a conversation at the same time, what a good beer is, why you need to tailgate the cretin in front of you going exactly the speed limit instead of simply driving around him, why you glare at said cretin once you do pass him and, finally, the need to every once a while blow an exorbitant amount of money at a gentlemen's club.
To cap off a great day of slaving away under the hood of your car or watching a game or any other guy activity featured on a beer commercial, there's nothing quite like going to a dark, smoky bar, parking your butt in a plush chair and paying naked women to dance (often poorly, but who cares?).
Before you embark on one of these excursions, it is important to plan carefully. First you must placate your wife or girlfriend. The best way is to just come out and tell her: "'Bob' is in town, and I haven't seen him in a while, so he thought a few of us should go out to spend our hard-earned paychecks watching half-naked women from a distance of at least three feet." It's critical to make this idea come from "Bob"; you would never suggest such a crass thing on your own. Now, if you have an exceptionally critical and shrewish significant other, she may remind you that you and "Bob" work together and see each other all the time, then ask why the hell you feel the need to look at other women when, if you would just put in a little more time at home, maybe she'd feel more like succumbing to your incessant begging for sex. At the very least, she will give you the dreaded rolled eyeballs that succinctly say, "You are pathetic." So on second thought, it's better to lie and say you're going to Home Depot.
Next you must choose an appropriate venue. It should be near other bars, because before you enter the strip club, you need to have drunk enough beer to stay buzzed until the next evening, at least. You're going to spend too much as it is; you don't need to pay $6 for cheap American "beer" on top of it. Plus, skin clubs just aren't that much fun when you're sober, unless you really are a degenerate or a corporate executive closing an underhanded deal. And no matter how drunk you are, some clubs are too seedy even for a degenerate like you. So when you finally stumble through the valet parking lot to your club of choice, make sure you have to pay a cover. I once went to a club in Texas that didn't have one; I had more teeth than all the dancers there combined. Shotgun's is our strip club of choice because of its location and the strippers' dental hygiene.
Once you're in, you need to decide where to sit. Personally, I prefer center stage. From there you get to see every dancer as she comes on stage, and you can easily pick which woman you are going to fall in love with that night. But don't sit too close, because you could get a black eye from a set of impossibly large breasts.
Despite all of our careful planning and drinking this night, we didn't attract any dancer for long, largely because we broke into hysterics every time one of them was introduced. For some reason, the DJ in any quality skin club always has a deep, manly voice like an airline pilot or that guy who announces all the boxing matches. I theorized that this guy's voice was electronically altered and that if he actually came out from behind the booth, everyone would see that he was really 4'6". We couldn't wait for his voice synthesizer to short out at the end of "And now, on center stage, put your hands together for Lavender," so that his voice changed from James Earl Jones to Cartman. After beating this joke to death, we couldn't pay women to sit with us.
Even Lexus gave "Bob" the cold, naked shoulder.
So don't laugh at or around the dancers. They're in a very vulnerable position, and you need to be sensitive. If you're not, no matter how many dollar bills you own, that special lady will never fall in love with you.
