So, if my parents ask, I was at my friend Bob's place last night, hanging out, okay?

Here's the real story:

My Waterloo friends and I have a tendency to torture our friend Allan on his birthday. Last year, we gave him a break, and we just took him out for dinner. This year, we figured we needed to do something more interesting. So we took him out for dinner again, except we surprised him by secretly inviting his friend Ben from high school. That was all well and good. Then with the gifts, we gave him a gag gift (a pocket-sized version of "Dating for Dummies") and a real gift (an Ottawa Senators t-shirt...I felt so icky when I bought it). So that was okay. Then we took him blindfolded down Yonge Street and stopped in front of...The Brass Rail. Yes friends, we went to a strip club. What was really great was that everyone went inside to check it out, even Rehmat, whose parents would probably kill her if they ever found out (shhh!).

So, what are my impressions? Well, it was crowded, but probably because there was a bachelor party going on (there was a bus parked outside), so we didn't get the best seats in the house. There were actually a few other women in there who weren't employees. And perhaps it was because it was still kind of early (around 10-11pm), but the ladies weren't all that impressive. They were pretty, but not that great at dancing. One girl used the Atari's "Boys of Summer", which in my opinion was a weird song to dance to. It could have worked but she was kind of moving around slowly, which was all wrong. Rehmat and I were somewhat disappointed, and Bob actually got bored. Even the audience wasn't that excited. Every time a girl finished her act, there was a small smattering of applause. The announcer had to keep encouraging the guys to make some noise. The last girl we saw before we left was a little more interesting though. She climbed up the pole and hung upside down using only her legs. We left soon after that because a party of 15 was going to come in and we didn't want to get trapped in the corner.

Conclusions? Maybe The Brass Rail isn't the best one out there, but if most strip clubs are like that, then I don't see what the big deal is. I know that sounds funny coming from me, but I think that even if it were a bunch of guys getting naked on a stage, it wouldn't have been any more interesting. Unless they were really good looking...

"I search myself, I want you to find me, I forget myself, I want you to remind me"