I Can't Afford to Be Cool

Okay, so this weekend was a story about how one couple felt they were ripped off at one of the local "ultra lounges", the hip new term for a dance club. In brief, they made a reservation where they were told they needed to buy two bottles of alcohol at three hundred seventy-five a piece to reserve the table. When they got there they had to tip two hundred and fifty dollars just to get to their 'reserved' seats. Apparently you have to tip to avoid the bathroom line, tip to get 'security' to do gosh only knows what, etc. They were charged five hundred dollars a bottle for the alcohol instead of three seventy-five and the night cost them several thousand dollars. The man said he feld "financially raped".

Okay, I can understand how they felt abused. But no means no. They didn't have to buy into the hype, they could have refused to pay the outrageous charges, they could have gone somewhere else. But they wanted to be cool, hang at a place with the popular people and be hip. I guess it's actually a very democratic system if you realize that those who aren't 'cool' can buy their way into cool. Aren't wearing the 'right' clothes? Tip the door guy enough and he'll overlook it. Don't fit in? Bring cash and you'll be accepted and loved...for as long as your money holds out anyway.

Now I'm going to reveal how uncool I really am (I know, big shock to those who know me). I used to love to go dancing and we would go to clubs. (Not ultra-lounges, but clubs). We never had to wait in line, and I never paid for a table and drinks were about five bucks apiece. (But most of the time when I'm dancing I drink water, gotta stay hydrated when you are gyrating) If we found a table that was empty, we took it and someone in our group had to protect it or we would lose it. (This is called 'purse patrol' since if there was a table protector all of the girls would leave their purses rather than take them on the dance floor.) You left your drink on the table and placed a napkin over the top of it to let the staff know that you were still drinking it. (Not a good idea today in the era of GHB.)

So back then an evening out might cost me ten dollars. Five for my drink, a dollar for a tip and four bucks for breakfast at some casino with a cheap breakfast special in the wee hours of the morning after the night out. Hopefully we would find men to buy us additional drinks. This happened most of the time because my friends were kind of slutty and had big boobs, and I have a great personality.

Several thousand dollars isn't a night out, it's rent and groceries and car payments. I don't know how anyone, no matter how weathy, who can justify to me spending that kind of money on a dance club. A trip to France, I understand. A cruise to Alaska, yup, I can see that. But too loud music, warm alcohol and paying to pee? No way. I will admit that on the hip scale I fall far closer to 'dweeb' than to 'cool girl'. And I'm okay with that, because I can afford to be a dweeb. I can't afford to be cool.