Sexy Not

As I sit here thinking about my life and what was one of the most embarrassing things that I had experienced. I am reminded sadly of the few years right between graduating from High School and getting married and deciding to start a family. Most of my friends at that time were being sent off to college and living on campus in Texas. That was not the case with me, my father may have been able to afford to send me to college. However, he was the type of man who believed that ninety-eight percent of the time whatever a student majored in college they did not actual make a living doing. I cannot say that I was surprised, at that time in my life my father had never been supportive. I wish I would have received knowledge about the government grants available during that time. Especially the FAFSA grant that did not have to be repaid. Instead of going to college, I worked babysitting, cleaning houses, as a cashier, hostess in a restaurant, a receptionist for a bankruptcy attorney, file clerk, also a telemarketer. I would try different kinds of jobs looking for something that I could enjoy doing on a long-term basis.

At the age of twenty, I was asked by an employment agency to wear a bathing suit under my clothes on an interview for a waitress job. I was so incredibly naive that I just did what I was told and did not question it. Around six in the evening on a Friday, my boyfriend at the time drove me to a shrinky dink hole-in-the-wall building that ended up being a strip club. It was bad enough that I had butterflies in my stomach, now I had to endure musky cologne and cigarette smoke. I was greeted by a bouncer and escorted to a meeting room with several other ladies. The other women being interviewed with me also had to wear a bikini bathing suit under their clothes. We were all under the impression that we would be working as cocktail waitresses serving drinks to customers as the newspaper advertized. I was shocked when asked to line up on stage with the other women in my bikini swimwear and dance to some music. What did dancing sexy have to do with being a cocktail waitress? If anything I should have been asked to hold a tray full of drinks, walk wearing heels for an hour, take an order so they could see if my writing was legible, even putting me in an awkward situation with a drunk customer to see how I would respond made more sense than asking me to do a sexy dance on stage.

Unfortunately, the interview was taking longer than I anticipated which resulted in my boyfriend walking into the club to see if I was alright. I was so terribly embarrassed when he saw me on stage, put a dollar in my bikini bottom, and sat down at a table to see what else was going to happen. I had never danced like that before and I quickly realized that there was absolutely nothing sexy about me. In fact when all the other ladies were receiving five dollar bills in their bikini bottoms, I still only had the dollar from my boyfriend. Humiliated beyond belief I got off the stage, walked super fast to the car, and cried like a big baby until we reached my apartment. My boyfriend was not the type of guy who knew what to say in a situation such as I got myself into. He just held me without speaking until I felt like talking and told me that he loved me. Fortunately, he was the type of guy who would protect his women. I never had to worry about him telling anyone what happened that day. Instead, he offered to take me with him when he moved to Lafayette Louisiana the following week. He had accepted a computer programming position from a reputable company and would be making enough money to take care of all the bills. I still to this day never learned how to move my body in a sexy way, but I did find out that being a writer is something I can do every day and never get sick of.