Weekend Beach Bum:  

Last night, my friend Sean and I took a trip to D.C. to witness the first Miss International pageant at Ziegfeld’s. Sean’s hubby Randy was judging at the event and had been at the bar all day for some exhaustive prejudging. Sean and I hit the road at about 3:00 in the afternoon to meet up with Randy, and we made it to Ziegfeld’s (after an unplanned slight detour down I-295) by 6:00. It was my first trip to Ziegfeld’s, and Sean’s first trip to the capital city of this sometimes-great nation of ours, so both of us were buzzing with excitement. (Incidentally, President Bush’s helicopter flew right over us on our way into the city, but I refused to accept this as a bad omen for our night of fun.)

Sean, Randy, and I were famished and decided to drive around and scavenge for some dinner. Not being familiar with the area, we stopped at the first restaurant we saw, which happened to be one of those happy KFC/Taco Bell combination restaurants. Being veggie, it usually is difficult for me to find a meal at a fast food joint, but two Taco Bell bean burritos, coupled with two ears of KFC corn and a side of coleslaw, really fit the bill. What didn’t fit, at least in my mind, was the bulletproof glass dividing the patrons and the workers! We were NOT in Kansas anymore. I’m far from a country bumpkin, and I travel frequently to D.C. and New York, but his was new for me. We ate our food a little more quickly than any good dietician would recommend, and high-tailed it back to Ziegfeld’s pronto.

Creative costume prejudging occurred from 7:00 until about 8:00, and the pageant was schedule to start sharply at 9:00. Stretching even the limits of "drag time," since the house was nowhere near full, the start time was bumped up until 10:00, and then 10:30. Sean bided his time chatting with some of the girls in the show, but my antsy tendencies got the best of me and I decided to check out the other side of the bar, Secrets. Sean told me it was a fun place and that I would love it. So I grabbed the first of many cocktails and sauntered over to the "manly" side of the bar.

The first things I saw when I stepped into Secrets were not smiling patrons or chatty bartenders, but several dancing penises! I don’t mean men in 6-foot penis costumes like you might have seen onstage behind Bette Midler in her bathhouse concert days, but real dancing penises attached to real dancing men. I didn’t know that Secrets was a strip bar, and I certainly didn’t know that it was a "take it all off" bar. I attempted to saunter nonchalantly to the bar to light up a cigarette and enjoy a Ruth Ann Minnerless evening. As I exhaled the first puff of blue-white smoke, I saw even more penis—this time, on numerous television screens. I was completely surrounded by penis—dancing penis, flaccid penis, thrusting penis. I couldn’t decide whether to throw up my dinner from the decadence of it all, or to throw up my legs and surrender.

Not only do the dancers gyrate on several podiums and take an occasional shower behind the bar before a huge plate glass window, they also walk around on top of the bar as you’re sitting, gaping at the TV screens. These boys really put the cock in cocktail. In fact, one of them almost did. Staring into my drink, I watched a white-stocking pair of feet coming my way. I moved my eyeglasses and prayed for him to keep on trucking, but his feet straddled either side of my rum and Coke. I unobtrusively tucked a dollar bill into his left sock, thinking he’d gotten what he wanted and would keep moving. Instead, he squatted down right over my glass, and I could either stare straight ahead at his massive Mr. Happy or I could look up into his face. I chose the latter. He introduced himself, and after some pleasant small talk, he took hold of his member and, with a wink, asked me to say hello to "Moby." In this case, I didn’t think it would be polite to shake.