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Last weekend, my friends invited me to tag along while they went to a club in Philadelphia, knowing that I was married, and therefore, open to stupid ideas.
Right away we ran into a snag when the very nice oak tree named Larry who guarded the front door informed me that sneakers and jeans weren’t allowed inside. Apparently, the establishment had a reputation for being “upper-class,” and they liked all their patrons to be dressed appropriately when they passed out drunk in a corner.
Ordinarily, this would have spelled the end of my evening, but on this occasion I was able to reason with Larry by pointing out all the attractive women in my group. In the world of nightclubs, attractive women are never turned away because, without them, men would be forced to dance with each other — an activity that’s acceptable only in very specific bars and at Spring Formals in prison.
After Larry let us pass, we met Sheryl, who checked our ID, and her partner Steve, a financial advisor who spoke with us about the various loan options available in order to purchase drinks at the bar.
Once we’d filled out the appropriate paperwork (being a homeowner, I took the second-mortgage option, in case I wanted a beer to chase my cocktail) we entered the club and got our first look at the DJ.
More than anything else, clubbing is about the music, and you can tell a lot about a place based on what the DJ spins. For example, some DJs play the song that goes, “Hey! Ho! Hey! Ho!” for seven hours straight. This is fine for tourists and young people with fake ID, but my friends had been clubbing for years and were far more selective, preferring the song that goes, “Ho! Hey! Ho! Hey!” for seven hours straight.
The real beauty of this music, I learned, is that anyone can dance to it, mainly because it’s played at a decibel level that induces full epileptic seizures.
In no time at all, I was out on the dance floor, gyrating with the rest of the crowd, comfortable for the first time in my life under such conditions. I had so much fun that I bought my friends a bottle of champagne just to thank them for bringing me along. It’ll be paid off in 2010, unless interest rates go up.
