"I sure hope that pole has been sanitized"

Don’t want my Dino nuggets going extinct.

This post and @OlderSometimesWiser picture made me think of this story back when I was 18 and I tried to be stripper. I sucked at it, I was better at being funny. So here you go you two - enjoy (The names have been change to protect the innocent. mainly me)

You know, people think stripping is all glamour and lights. It’s not. It’s mostly just maintenance. It’s like being a janitor, but the equipment is vertical and people try to hump it.

I remember my first week. I’m waiting in the wings, nervous as hell. Finally, the DJ calls my name: 'Alright, next up… it’s The Human from Earth!'

I walk out, grab the pole for my big entrance spin, and I look down. And there it was. A mark. A dark, mysterious, friction-based smudge about three feet off the ground.

My brain just short-circuited. In that job, you see a lot of things. But you never expect to see evidence of someone else’s… enthusiasm… right where you’re supposed to put your face.

I froze. Do I rat out the last dancer? "hey Mack! Brenda’s back there again! She didn’t just dance, she friction welded herself to the pole. We need a cleanup crew!"

Or do I just own it? Spin around it like it’s choreography? "And here we go, navigating the No-Touch Zone… very technical move, very balletic. You don’t see that in Swan Lake!"

So I did the only logical thing: I spent my entire entrance aggressively Windexing a three inch circle while winking at the crowd. "Don’t worry, folks, this is the interactive part of the show!"

I ended up spending the whole set disinfecting the pole with my bare hands while trying to look seductive. Nothing kills the mood like a dancer aggressively scrubbing a stain and whispering, "Really, Brenda? Come on."

That’s the part of the job nobody tells you about. The glamour is an illusion. The reality is just you, a metal pole, and the constant fear of catching someone else’s bad decisions.

What did the Polish ever do to you???

It was not