It's a cliche, but we nod in agreement with the soul piercing truths brought to life on the stage & screen. And yet we are confronted with a stinging rebuke from a calloused people when we try to alert an individual with these tales of caution in their own reality. 'MYOB' or 'don't judge me' or 'you're closed minded' are often the indignant rejoinders.
Mike Adams (always a great read) says he had a dream. It sound more like some people's nightmare.
Last night I had a dream that I was sitting in a diner not far from the beach. A girl with a suntan walked into the diner and sat down next to me. She had beautiful green eyes, sun-bleached hair and the face of a cover girl. We knew each other through a mutual friend who teaches in the public schools.
When I asked her how she was she said that she was having trouble finding her place in the world. She had just changed careers twice in the last month. She had no college degree, so she decided it was time to go back to school. But, for the time being, she had to raise some money. She had no savings at age 25.
Immediately after she told me that she planned to work in one of the local topless bars to save some money, she saw my stunned reaction. So she tried to overwhelm me with the numbers. “The girls make $500 a night, tax free,” she said. Then she started to add up the numbers for a whole year of dancing and otherwise living modestly. My expression didn’t change and she got frustrated. She reminded me that some topless dancers make more money than professors.
And I dreamed that I resisted the temptation to respond sarcastically by reminding her that drug dealers make more money than doctors. Instead, I told her about Carolyn.
Carolyn was from Massachusetts. She was a bright student—at least she was about ten years ago. Her father was a lawyer. It was her dream to become a lawyer, too. She took a job in a topless bar. Before long she was spending her cash on the cocaine that freely flows within the walls of that bar—the cocaine the police seem to overlook. Carolyn ended up sleeping with her boss and getting pregnant. When she had misgivings about an abortion, she was fired. She dropped out of college, and she isn’t a lawyer today. She isn’t even a stripper.
And then I told her about Meghan. She was from a small town near the Virginia border. She went to work in the topless bar as a cocktail waitress promising she would never actually become a stripper. But she did become a stripper.
I told her how I saw Meghan in the store the other day and hardly recognized her. And I recalled when she enrolled at my university and looked like she was 12 years old. Nine years later she could pass for 45. A single year in a topless bar can put a decade on a young woman’s face.
Then I told her about Angie. She was a gorgeous young girl who prided herself on her athletic ability. She, too, started out as a cocktail waitress. Then she became a stripper. After she gained a few pounds, the manager fired her. Now she works behind a make-up counter in the mall.
Angie’s friend is a graduate of the university with a good career. She keeps in touch with me from time to time. She says that somewhere between the cocaine parties and the group sex, continued