Strip Taxi

Despite my love of Christmas and impressive collection of Books of Mormon, I can count the number of times I've been to church on one hand. The act of repentance is completely foreign to me, so in order to relieve the guilt of my moral lapses, I've been forced to turn to self punishment. But because I'm unwilling to give up food for any amount of time and have really come to enjoy having pinkies, my penance often comes in the form of booking 6 a.m. flights.

I have only one roommate with a car and, sadly, she does not suffer from insomnia. Taxi drivers, on the other hand, have evolved past sleep and live only to pick me up at 4 in the morning and listen to me spew bullshit for the full 20 minutes it takes to drive to the Eugene airport.

This morning, while cutting up a yellow bell pepper I had no intention of eating, I decided it might be a good idea to practice my vocal tic (a whispered, almost inaudible "tikka-too" after every sentence) on the taxi driver. This way I'd know if it was even remotely believable, and could avoid the embarrassment of potentially being labeled a Tourette's faker by someone I'd have to share an armrest with for the next 2 and a half hours.

But all that worrying for nought! My conversation with Rob of VIP Taxis went off without a hitch. He said good morning, I said good morning. He asked "Airport?", I confirmed my destination. He complimented my punctuality; I ... completely forgot to add the fucking tikka-toos! GODDAMNIT. TS tics are known to come and go frequently, but 3 sentences in, I'd already psyched myself out. Fuck shit bitch ass whore! Tikka-too.

I probably would have just dropped the whole thing, had the Cancún-bound Taiwanese students not kept pleading "5 more minutes" into Rob's cell phone. We sat in their apartment's parking lot for nearly half an hour, talking about love, about life, about philosophy, dreams, the existence or inexistence of free will... But really, I just told him I was a stripper.

He asked for it though. After thoroughly exhausting the weather and my major, Rob asked if I worked or if I was "just a student." What I wanted to say was "Fuck you, Rob, I've slept a total of 5 hours in the past 2 days -- being a student is work," but what came out was "Yeah. I work." I hadn't thought about all of this beforehand though, so I'd paused for too long when he asked where. And that pause can only mean one of three things - either I'm lying, I'm a secret agent, or I take my clothes off for a living. So because admitting to the second option would immediately take us back to the first one, I told Rob I was "a... uh, dancer."

His eyebrows moved a ways up his forehead, but it wasn't doubt that lifted them so much as surprise. His eyes quickly darted to the remnants of my runner's body; my thin limbs and round belly, my newfound spider-self, born as a result of atrophied muscle and a tendency toward late-night snacking. I wanted to yell for him to go fuck himself, that even real strippers didn't look like strippers, but he stopped me - "What kind of dancer?" I yawned my response. "Stripper." He laughed, turned his body to face me. "Really?" I nodded. Fuck this guy. I didn't say I raked in tons of money as a stripper, I just said I was one. He asked where I worked, how I liked it, if business had suffered at all... He was actually really interested. For some reason I expected him to feel awkward and drop it, but he started talking about how he dated a girl once, found out she was a dancer (he kept saying this - "dancer" - even after I had referred to myself as a stripper), and he was totally okay with it. He said he didn't understand guys who had a problem with it, that any guy should feel lucky to date a dancer.

Apparently, I work at Jiggles. Probably because this is the only Eugene strip club I know. It seemed to be an acceptable answer though - he was neither horrified nor impressed. I told him I had trouble getting into the dances and being "sexy," so my signature dance was performed in a hazmat suit to the Ghostbuster's theme song. And he must have approved, because he immediately started singing. And didn't stop. I had no idea that song was so long! He had to silence 2 calls during his performance. I kept waiting for it to finish, and when it didn't, I felt weird about just sitting there listening, so I started adding in "GHOST BUSTERS!" when appropriate. After he'd screamed "I AIN'T AFRAID OF NO GHOSTS!" to his reflection in the rear view mirror, he leapt out of the car and started smoking a cigarette. After he'd finished his first one, he stuck his head back in the van to offer me one, and when I declined, he lit up another. And another. Had the Taiwanese students not showed up, I'm pretty sure Marlboro's stock would have tripled.

He seemed to forget me once they entered the van. He berated them for being late and told them they would miss their flight, to which they replied with maniacal screaming. Or maybe it wasn't maniacal, but I tend to put mental straight jackets on anyone who reaches octaves higher than my mumbled monotone. After they calmed down, the van fell silent for awhile, and the driver apologized for our tardiness. He asked when my flight was scheduled to depart, where I was going, and that was that. No more mention of shaking my ass in strangers' faces part time. "Vegas," didn't even elicit a smirk.

When we finally got to the airport, the driver had the girls in the backseat pay first. A fifty dollar fare resulted in a non-existent tip, and he yelled through the window that he hoped they'd miss their flight. Feeling awkward again, and realizing that this time it would not be appropriate to interject the titles of Bill Murray movies, I made my mouth into a backslash and handed him my debit card.

And he handed it back.

Moral of the lie: Time to switch career plans because STRIPPERS. RIDE. FREE.