Never Been Stripped

I will start with a warning that this is a long one, it's the story of possibly the craziest night of my life (so far).

It was 2005, I lived in Canberra in a 2 bedroom unit in Braddon. It was a Saturday night and my mate Mick had come around to my place for a quiet beer or two.

For some reason I didn't want to stay in this night, I wanted to get out there and interact with people, Mick didn't feel the same way however, and the only way I could convince him to come with me (because there was no way I was going alone) was to agree that we would only go to Kingston to play some pool at the Kingo Pub. So we called a taxi and went to the Kingo, we played our pool and we drank some beer. After a couple of games I managed to convince Mick to come with me to a club nearby (walking distance) in Manuka called 'Minque'. I wanted to go there because I thought it was a place where attractive girls hung out.

So we walked to Minque and went in, however it was too loud and too crowded, so the only reason for us to be there was to look at girls (because there was no way we were going to talk to anyone with the music so loud). I don't know if you've ever seen two single guys wearing jeans and looking at girls in a busy nightclub, not dancing, not talking, just mentally undressing every girl they see, like a pair of vultures, but it stands out. It didn't really feel right so we decided to leave. Mick had just about had enough of the night, so we decided we'd go and catch a taxi.

The problem was, the only taxi rank in the area had a HUGE line. We decided it would be better if we just walked back towards Braddon (which is NOT close) and just waved at every taxi we saw, hopefully we'd catch one... We didn't catch one.

We found ourselves at the parliamentary circle before too long and really doubting our prospects of catching a cab, when all of a sudden a car pulled up on the side of the road (about 30m away from us) and a girl stuck her head out the passenger side window and asked us if we wanted a ride. We couldn't believe our luck, so we ran over, jumped in the back seats and off we went. We didn't really get a chance to see what the people in the car looked like because it was dark and we were a little drunk. We did manage to see however that the two people in the car were both girls, awesome.

The two girls in the car were going to Civic, which was much closer to where I lived, so it worked out well. It was some time ago now, so I don't remember the entire conversation, however one thing the girl in the passenger seat said really stuck with me; we were about half way across one of the bridges to the northern side of lake Burley Griffin when she said: "Well I'm actually guys, I'm a trannie and we're going to Cube (a gay bar in Civic) you should come along". They then started to rattle off reasons why this particular bar would be great for us to go to, the main argument I can remember was 'straight girls go there too'. The driver of the car said 'I'm straight and I'm going there'.

After the initial shock of that bombshell we managed to diplomatically sit on the fence with regard to the 'gay bar' thing, and I was beginning to think it wouldn't be such a bad idea, after all, the driver of the car was a girl, she was straight (which it seemed like she really emphasised when she told us) and we'd already done the 'ice breaking'. We hadn't seen her yet though, so I silently decided that I would reserve my decision until I saw what she looked like.

We arrived in Civic and got out of the car, it was then I saw their faces, and let me say, the trannie was the better looking one. We decided that we would NOT got to the gay bar, and we left as fast as our little legs would carry us. We then walked back to my house in Braddon.

Before you say: 'hang on a second' that's not a crazy night... just bear with me.

On the way home to Braddon, somehow we started talking about strip joints and I made mention of the fact that I had never been to one in my life. The conversation continued, and eventually got to 'fuck it, let's go tonight'. So after we got back to our place I decided I'd start looking up strip joints. Being reasonably familiar with Canberra, I knew that Fyshwick was the area with the sex shops, surely it'd be the suburb most likely to have a strip joint. So we found an ad in the yellow pages for a place in Fyshwick that had strip shows and we called a cab. I was in the loo when the taxi arrived, so I finished up and hurriedly grabbed the house keys and rushed out to the cab.

When we arrived in Fyshwick we weren't so sure we were in the right place, there were no lights and it was very quiet. We went to the front door of the place (which was closed) and pressed the doorbell.

Yes, I realise that alarm bells should have been going off at this point, but remember I had never seen a strip joint before, so I didn't know better.

We were buzzed into the building and found ourselves in a room with an overweight woman behind a counter in what could only be described as the reception room for the world's worst dentistry clinic. The overweight woman led us immediately down a hallway and into a room, sat us on a couch and told us to wait while she looked to see what girls were available. Five minutes later a trashy looking woman came in wearing lingerie, she introduced herself with a fake name (something like Honey or Butter, or Candy, let's go with Honey) and started asking us about our night, so we told her all about it so far, (although she was far less shocked by the trannie story than we expected). After about a minute of small talk she left the room.

No alarm bells yet, I don't know if it was because we were too innocent, too drunk, or what.

The overweight woman came back then and said that Honey was the only girl available, so did we want her or not.

Ding-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling-a-ling..... the alarm finally sounded, better late than never, we were sitting in a BROTHEL!!!

We managed to politely extract ourselves from the venue in record time. Still keen on finding a strip joint however we weren't going to give up yet, we looked at a couple of other places however were sure to ask before we walked through the door whether it was a strip joint, no luck unfortunately, all brothels.

Eventually, we resigned ourselves to the fact that there were no strip joints in Fyshwick, and started to think about getting home. We looked left, we looked right and soon realised that we were WELL beyond help, there was absolutely NO traffic in this area, NO taxis, No cars, there wasn't even a soul on the street. We knew that there was no chance a taxi would just happen to be driving past to pick us up. We called the taxi company and found out that we would have roughly a 90min wait before a taxi arrived. We were even further from home this time than we were earlier, but we decided it would be better to walk than to wait in dodgy Fyshwick for an hour and a half.

The walk however presented us with another dilemma; we needed to travel roughly West, however the road went south, then West, then North in three quarters of a square shape, probably an extra 5km of walking. Our other choice was to walk the fourth quarter of the square, however there were no roads that way, only a great big area of paddocks, some of which were used as a turf farm. Our choices therefore were to walk an extra 5km but stick to the road, so we'd have more chances of finding a taxi, or to walk across the paddocks, beyond help, but much less walking to do.

We chose to walk across the paddocks. About 10% of the paddock walk done we bumped into a waist high wire fence and had to climb it, shortly afterwards we bumped into another similar fence, and started planning to get over it when we were startled by movement on the other side. It took us a while to realise, but we were standing at the edge of a horse paddock, and a horse had come up to see what was going on. After trying to feed it (apparently after midnight is not a horse meal time) we climbed the fence. We tried to think of a way we could ride the horse across the paddock, but without a saddle it was just too difficult drunk. It followed us half way across.

After we jumped another fence we found ourselves walking through the turf farm part. There was no grass in the turf farm, only VERY loose dirt, which made walking difficult. We struggled through the turf farm for about 600m, all the way feeling sorry for the poor turf farmer who would wake up in the morning to find two sets of foot prints leading all the way across his field. Eventually we made it back to the road and continued on our way home. A little bit further on we were in the vicinity of RMC Duntroon (where I had spent a year previously) and the whole trip didn't seem so bad, people walk from the town to Duntroon all the time, admittedly they are usually drunk (as we were) and it is considered a long walk, and we'd already done quite a lot of walking, and it was getting late, but now at least it seemed manageable.

As it turned out, it didn't matter anyway, because another car pulled up at the side of the road and a guy poked his head out of the driver's side window and offered us a ride. We climbed into the back seats and he asked us where we were going, we told him Braddon and off he went. He asked us about our night and we explained we had been in Fyshwick, this got his attention, and he immediately started telling us that he had just come from the brothels in Fyshwick, and that he was a regular visitor to the area. We explained that we were just looking for a strip joint and he told us that we were barking up the wrong tree, if we wanted a strip joint we needed to go to Mitchell, the other side of Canberra.

The guy then tried to convince us to go with him to Mitchell to the strip joints, he said he'd drive us there, we could go in and have a look, and if we didn't like it he would drive us home. Neither Mick nor I felt like waking up in a bath full of ice with our kidneys missing, so we made up some excuse about having a huge night and just wanting to get home to bed. We got the guy to drop us off near, but not at, my apartment, there was no way I was going to let that guy see where I lived.

We walked the last few hundred meters to my door, only to find that the keys I had grabbed in my rush to get to the strip joint, were actually Mick's car keys, I'd locked the keys to the house inside. I started making plans about breaking a window and calling a repairer for the next day, or calling an all-night locksmith. I didn't know any numbers though, so I started to recite a jingle I heard on the radio, 'night and day locksmiths, night and day locksmiths, night and day have the key to end your misery' BUGGER, there was no number in the jingle.

Mick said he thought he had a spare set of keys to my house in his office at uni, and we did have Mick's car keys (by accident), so we jumped in the car and Mick drove us to uni. When we got there however we realised that his office was locked and the keys to open it were locked inside my house. I considered sleeping on the floor in Mick's uni room, but the keys to his room were also locked inside my house (he kept his car and house keys separate). I decided we should return to my place to try one last time to break in, and if I couldn't get in, I'd just break a window. We got back to the house and by some stroke of luck found a window that wasn't properly closed. I opened the window, climbed into the house and opened a door to let Mick in. I offered Mick my spare room, given that he really shouldn't be driving, but he figured he'd already done the damage and he would rather return to his own bed. So he went home.
All-in-all the night was really a quite a failure, we didn't get to see strippers, we got terrified by a trannie, moved around by a madam, propositioned by a prostitute and befriended by a potential serial killer. Even though we were at times uncomfortable, terrified, tired or all three at once, it was a very funny night, and one we will never forget.