Trip to Canada leads to surreal experience (eh?)

Ever have one of those experiences that you’re not even sure you’re even experiencing? You know that you’re there, but you’re not sure if it’s real. Usually these types of experiences stay with you.
Try as I might, there is a particularly funny and very surreal experience that I had several weeks ago that I cannot forget about. It’s not something that I think about very often, but it’s stuck with enough to make me laugh out loud at the most inopportune times (while bored in class).
At the end of September, one of my best friends turned 20. Seeing as how 20 is the crappiest birthday age, my roommate and I decided we should take her to Canada to celebrate. That way, she could dress up, drink at the bars and just have a good time. The only thing was, she had already been to the bars in Windsor plenty of times since her last birthday. What we needed to do was something different than what we had ever done before.
The answer to this dilemma was easily found. We would go to Danny’s. For all those who don’t know what this place is, and I’m betting (hoping) most don’t, it is a male strip club in Windsor.
To some (probably males), it may not seem like a strange thing to take your friend out to a strip joint for their birthday, but it’s a bit different for girls. We aren’t constantly bombarded with images of male sexuality. American media seems to shun showing any sort of male nudity and I can’t even think of one “ladies club” in Michigan. Prior to the outing, I viewed the night as some sort of rebellion adventure (except that I kinda cleared it with my boyfriend and my mom before I went).
After crossing the border into Windsor, we realized we didn’t know where we were going. Too embarrassed to ask the fatherly border guard for directions, we were forced to ask a parking attendant with sketchy English skills and a hotel receptionist where this now infamous Danny’s bar was. After much driving in circles and debate, we found the place.
The building was so plain and unassumingly decorated, it could have passed for a Knights of Columbus Hall. Except, of course, for the limos in the parking lot filled with a bachelorette party wearing party hats decorated with pictures torn from a porn magazine.
I don’t consider myself to be uptight by any means. But standing in line to get into this strange establishment, I considered suggesting that we try one of the normal bars. I had to ask myself, why on Earth were three intelligent young women shelling out $10 dollars ($15 Canadian) each to enter into this club of debauchery? And then I remembered, it was for fun.
I’m about to make an assumption and a generalization, but I think that for the most part, anyone who is being honest will agree with me. Women go to strip clubs or hire strippers as sort of a joke. It’s primarily to share a laugh with your friends and have a momentary sense of power that women don’t normally get. Men go to strip clubs for…well I think we all know why most men go to strip clubs.
Fifteen minutes after parking the car, we found ourselves seated at a banquet style table with a bunch of women we did not know. The lights were dim, dance music was playing, strobe lights were flashing and there were half-naked men everywhere.
A “shot hunk” (who was not very hunky) paraded around with a tray of orange liqueur in tubes that he made women drink out of the waistband of his short-shorts. Luckily, this Fabio-haired wonderboy couldn’t easily reach where we were sitting to sell us overpriced shots and a close-up view of his fake tan.
For the first twenty minutes of the night, I just sat and laughed. I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. Men everywhere, doing table dances, naked handstands onstage, wearing costumes and performing synchronized dance routines. And let’s just say that there are no rules about what must be kept on in Canadian strip clubs. In that country, anything, and everything, goes.
It was at this point that we realized we had not brought enough money to get enough $5 beers to get us in the right frame of mind for the evening. I was having fun, but couldn’t help being creeped out.
I mean, I was watching a bunch of grown men wearing Village People costumes dancing to “Y.M.C.A.” and “Macho Man.” The night couldn’t get any weirder. But of course, it did. My friends and I watched two women who were seated near us proceed to spend hundreds and hundreds of dollars in an hour and a half time span on table dances. I watched as one of the women slipped a dancer a fifty dollar tip, thinking how that kind of money could buy me groceries for a month. Ahhh. What it must be like to be able to throw that kind of money away. At least that guy will be able to pay off his student loans.
We left Danny’s well before closing time. You can only take that atmosphere for so long before you begin to feel impure. Which isn’t to say that I didn’t have a good time, cause I actually had a great time. I’m sure my friends and I will go back some time in the future.
You will never know the true meaning of the term “high maintenance” until you visit a place like Danny’s. I have never seen so many men with tan lines, hairless arms (and backs, chests, legs), styled hair and defined muscles.
The experience made me appreciate my boyfriend even more. It’s nice to be dating someone who doesn’t spend hours a week at tanning sessions or lifting at the gym. Plus, I never have to worry about him stealing my moisturizing shaving gel.