Birthday Girl Turned Stripper?

Monday night was considerably tamer than Sunday and for that, I was relieved. I was running on empty from the moment I woke up and just wanted to hurry up and get the shift over with so I could go home and go to bed. I gave everything I had to my Sunday shift and it took everything out of me. I was hurting, tired and in no mood for bullshit. Thankfully, no bullshit was handed to me and I made it through the shift without incident.

We had quite a few out-of-towners in on Monday night, avoiding the mad rush at the airports from all the Super Bowl and FBR Open fans. They were relatively well behaved and I only had to cut off a couple of them, with no problems.

One of my waitresses was turning 20 years old at the stroke of Midnight and I spent considerable time trying to convince her to go up on stage for one song. It's a tradition at our club that whenever a staff member has a birthday, we throw them up on stage for 1-2 songs, so they can get showered with Birthday Cash from all of their customers that they've been serving. It's a damn good tradition, I say, as I've experienced many birthdays at this club and it's always the best money shift of the year, hands down. When I was just a bartender, before I became a Manager, I easily made $1500 or more on my birthdays and I told this to Ashley*, trying to talk her into a mere 2 minutes on stage for a ton of money.

She finally agreed to do it shortly before we were about to close. The club was almost empty by that time and I'm sure that's why she waited. I totally understand stage fright, as I've experienced my share as a struggling aspiring actor/model when I was living in Los Angeles and when I first moved to Arizona. I've done a few small things, but that's a story for another day. The first time I got up on-stage at this club was tough for me too, but I did it knowing the pay-off would be well worth it.

Anyway, back to Ashley. My bouncer, Jack*, had to physically pick Ashley up and carry her over his shoulder, to the stage. She was obviously terrified, at first. Once the money started raining down around her she loosened up a little. See, even though the club was almost empty, there was still a large party of guys sitting on the main floor. They bought several bricks of 1's from the bar, circled the stage and began throwing the money at Ashley. The best way to describe this large party of guys is to say they are "Self-Employed Local Distributors." They come in several nights a week and always drop at least $1000 just buying bricks of 1's to "make it rain" on-stage. I love that they do this, even though they look kind of silly, like kids trying to emulate what they see in rap videos on MTV.

Ashley, on-stage shortly before the stage was absolutely covered in money

She stayed up there for 2 songs and made so much money that my bouncers had to use champagne buckets to carry it all off stage. I was happy for her but I may have created a monster. See there's a running joke in the strip club; What's the difference between a waitress and a stripper? Two weeks or one stage. Ashley's been with us more more than 2 weeks but this was her first stage, so we shall just have to wait and see what happens. Too many times to count, our hot waitresses have crossed over to the dark side of dancing. We've gotten to the point that when we hire waitresses, we hire girls who are already considering dancing but just want to get a feel for the industry by waitressing. These girls are always the hottest girls that come through the door, fresh-faced, not yet jaded and eager to learn the art of the hustle. The Cover Girl for our club, who is in all of our advertising, started out as a Day Shift waitress. Way back, when I first started working in the strip club industry, I considered dancing but then I came to my senses and realized it was not for me. I am thankful for the women willing to do it though, without them I wouldn't have the amazing career that I do.