Exit the Mad Stripper...
So it was about two years ago that I broke up with the Travel Agent and she moved out of my house. After a couple of weeks I decided it was time to go out looking for a new girl, so I signed up on match.com and started chatting up a variety of women. One was a restaurant manager, another was working at a placement agency, another was a postal worker, another was running a dental hygienist training school, and none of them know about the others.

Well, the postal worker didn't work out, the one at the placement agency turned out to be a former stripper with issues, the restaurant manager got mad at me and stopped calling, and the dental hygienist trainer turned out to be nuttier than squirrel poo... so about November I decided to cut my losses and give up on the whole dating thing. The hygienist was, as it turned out, also a former stripper with some mental issues as well as substance abuse issues... but she was still entertaining to hang out with sometimes, and would drag me off to bed whenever she had the opportunity, so I kept in contact with her off and on. I made it clear that I was not looking for a relationship with her- she was just plain too damn unstable and had been intoxicated in front of my son a couple of times, which she unhappily acknowledged as being good reason to not be truly a couple, but it was still okay to be friends. I affectionately referred to her as The Mad Stripper, a name she earned through her rather erratic behavior, and my kids all met her and agreed that she was in essence a box of frogs.

Late in January I decided that since my kids all had Myspace pages I should get on there as well to keep an eye on them, so I constructed a page with the pic that's currently in my profile here with the cat on my shoulders, and about a day later was contacted by the woman who turned out to be the one who's currently living with me... so we started hanging out and started sharing a bed, and I had her stay here whenever we could manage it (at the time she lived an hour north of me).

Now I'm not enough of an asshole to be shagging two women at the same time behind each others' backs, so I let things trail off with the Mad Stripper. If she called I would answer and would chat with her, but I really didn't have the time to hang out anymore, sorry... and so it went. As some of these calls happened while I was with the Lunatic Artist, she was quite aware of the situation and found it somewhat amusing.

Then one Sunday afternoon as the Lunatic Artist was here hanging out with me, I saw a very familiar car pull into my driveway. She heard me mutter "Oh shit" and go out the door, and my sons immediately crowded around the window as I headed off the occupant of the car. I gently explained that I had company, and she looked crestfallen but accepted it gracefully and drove off.

I came in the door expecting to find and enraged Lunatic Artist packing her things into her bag, but instead found her cracking up with my sons as they laughed at my discomfort. When she could speak again, she said, "So that's the Mad Stripper?"

Seldom have I been more confused or more grateful.

Even though she does still tease me about that.
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 31 Aug 2007, 20:37, Reply)