The Lap Dance
Contrary to my declared plans more than a year ago, I’m finally making use of the paywall for the first time. This was written with the aim of including it within my still-pending memoir. Maybe it will still make the cut.
This is the story of how I tore my ACL while giving someone a lap dance. It’s also a story about Obama.
The year is 2013. Within a few hours of landing in the city during a trip, my friends and I hit the town. Bar-hopping from place to place, and accumulating a large snowball of acquaintances as we went along. Our final stop was going to be at an after-hours dance nightclub, the kind that stayed open until sunrise and where you’d find lone electronic music connoisseurs bopping their heads in a corner somewhere with their arms crossed.
We were a ball, and danced up a storm. My homies had such confidence and swagger on the dance floor that the crowd would do that thing where they part and give you a wide berth to give a space for your flailing limbs. Just like Moses. At one point, one of my buddies disengaged and sat down to check on his phone. In a bid to reengage him, I went up to his chair and started giving him a lap dance. Naturally. It got his attention.
I should discuss my lap dance technique. The kinesiology behind it. Obviously it involves a lot of active hip work, and making that happen in a structurally sound manner requires a solid foundation. Thankfully, years of squats and deadlifts gave me the lower body fortitude to support me during the high intensity core gyrations required. [If anyone requires a visual aid for this next section, please print out my picture and paste it onto a stick figure. If you’re too poor to have a printer at home, I can’t help you.]
My lap dances took two different distinct formats — frontal and rearal. The rearal has two distinct advantages in its favor: solid structural stability and the best theater seat of my ass. I’d have both feet firmly planted, bent over, and I could use even use my arms for additional — overkill — structural support. Without the hindsight benefit of an engineering degree, I nevertheless strove to approach the craft with the methodical precision it demanded. Halfway to designing real bridges.
The frontal required the most dexterity. It’s the most structurally precarious (FORESHADOWING ALERT) but also provides the most direct access to my genital area, which I’m told scores very well with lap dancing judges. The frontal approach is impossible to pull off without carefully incorporating the surrounding architecture.