I Always Wanted To Be A Stripper

There. I've said it. Secret's out. I feel much, much better now.

Of course, I'm going to qualify that statement by revealing that I wanted to be a stripper based on seeing that classic 80's movie, "Flash Dance" when I was eleven. I mean, come on; what could be more desirable than getting to work a badass job like welding during the day and then after that getting to go put on fancy frilly costumes and do really complicated choreographed dance routines on a stage in front of men who fall in love with you? And then use that valuable experience to gain entry into an exclusive dance company? How awesome!

And let's not forget the great little Burlesque routines that sometimes would show up on the variety shows in the 70's. Bah-dah-dah, Bah-dah-dah, BOOM-tsh-tsh! BOOM-tsh-tsh! And all they had to do was take off their dress, flip it around and maybe shake their still-brassiered chest. How much fun would that be?

Then someone took me to a strip club.

Never mind.

When I was 19 and still living at home and looking for gainful employment, I perused the want ads one morning over coffee. Well, I say morning, but I was a college student. It was probably more like noonish. Anyway, I see all these ads for "ESCORTS WANTED." Huh. Get paid to go out with men? I'd seen "Pretty Woman", and figured it was probably something like that, without the being a whore part. How hard could it be to wear really nice clothes and escort rich, handsome men to fancy-schmancy cocktail parties and dinners with the mayor? And then, of course, said handsome rich guy would fall hopelessly in love with me, climb up the fire escape and whisk me away to his mansion/penthouse. Done.

"I think I'll be an escort," I say nonchalantly to my mom as I sip my coffee. I think her coffee came out of her nose before she choked out "What? NO! God No! You're not doing that!" I'm sure I rolled my eyes, figuring my totally-uncool mom had it way wrong.

Hey, then I met an escort. By chance, while studying at a coffee shop, one of my friends introduced me to her. She looked like about ten miles of bad road (at the age of 20) and had two kids. She proudly showed everyone at the table pictures of her in her "Escort attire" when she was, oh, nine months pregnant. And my illusions were shattered. She told me what really goes down. Uh, including her. No Pretty Woman? No Richard Gere-type rich man falling in love? Nope. More like Dick the garbage man on pay day. Not that there's anything wrong with paying for a little lovin', but, um, no. No. Never mind.

Naïve?

Yes. Yes I am.

I also thought that I could major in Biology just by taking lots of classes in college about science stuff. Like Evolution, Morphology, Bird Care, Astronomy, that kind of thing. Imagine my shock and horror when I finally went to the Biology Department and met with a counselor. Physics? Organic Chemistry? Physics? Calculus? And, um, Physics?

Math is not my friend, and I couldn't for the life of me figure out why I needed Physics to be a zookeeper, but I gamely tried. Did you know it's really, really hard to learn Physics and Organic Chemistry when the classes are at 7 a.m. and the words are really big? Especially when one has a killer hangover from the Jager Bomb special the night before? Nope. New major!

So, after all that, I learned an important lesson:

Do your research. Don't go through life making big decisions with just half the story or with some crap someone forwarded you on the internet.

And never, EVER, innocently ask an escort how much money she gets for a hummer, especially when her boss is standing nearby. Ass-whupping all over.


So, how about you? Ever have a "dream job" and come to find out it wasn't what you thought?
Is there anything going on in the world right now that, oh, I don't know, you think you should do some research about before forwarding stupid rhetoric-and-hate-filled emails?