At one point in my life, I hadn’t thought much about midget strippers.  I was young and naïve and under the impression that all strippers were the good-looking athletic type.  But (you can see where this is going) we all know that assuming anything can be the kiss of death and I was wrong – sorely wrong – anyone can take their clothes off for money. 

WARNING!

This next blog is not for the faint-at-heart or the politically correct, but I can assure you that you will learn a little something about yourself.  And maybe, just maybe, you’ll be a better person for it.

The artist formerly known as "Crazy as a Loon"

Just a thought - would you even recognize him with hair?

The year was 1993.  A town in Waco had become popular, Prince was known as that “bat-crap crazy” artist, and Michael Jordan retired for the first time.  And me, I had managed to get through my fifth college and come out, for the first time, with a diploma.
 
It was a time to celebrate and I decided to host a party for myself, acknowledging the fact that I had finally finished something I started.  Sure it was fifteen years later than when I first walked the campus of Central Michigan University, but I am a slow learner and, frankly, I had issues that I now understand are my mother’s fault.

We don't look so bad together - could he have been "the one that got away"?

The party was to be held in the 600 square foot shoe box my children and I called “hell-hole home”.  Anyone who cared to affirm that I had actually graduated came, and I found myself surrounded  (probably for the first time) with the warmth and love that came with such an accomplishment.  As I remember, it was a lovely party and the joy that we shared transcended the heartache of the world. 

But it all went terribly awry when, during a chorus of Kumbaya, Kelly looked out the window and gasped.
 
“There’s a midget carrying balloons headed towards the apartment!”  She crushed her cigarette out in her beer can and added, “And he’s dressed like . . . an Arabian Sheik.”

A little something special, just for me

We all rushed to the window and, sure enough, a very small man with very large balloons was skipping towards us.  As he came closer we could hear him calling out, “Leath!  Oh Leath!  Where are you?  Dandy ith looking for you!”

I assumed, since my name is not Leath, he was looking for someone else.  But he wasn’t.  He just had a lisp.  “Dandy” arrived, teeth as large as the big bad wolf, with his boom box and balloons and bowed deeply.  “At your  thervice, my lady,” he announced.  “Dandy is all yourths for the nexths thirty minuths!”

This part was kind of weird - in a freaky way

As he dug through his bag, I searched the partygoer’s faces wondering who could have done this to me.  There was a stunned silence as I met each person’s eyes and I found only confusion and disbelief.  No one had that “ha ha” look – they were as surprised as I was.  Only when my daughter, Gracie, who was just five, burst into tears did anyone even move.
 
By then he had slipped a cassette into the box, removed his shirt and pants, and was dancing seductively, wait . . . seductively is not the word I want.  Let me rephrase that.  He was moving towards me in a strange way and holding out, what appeared to be, a bunch of grapes.  As he swiveled his hips to “Ice Ice Baby”, he held the fruit out to me, winked and whispered, “Feed me baby.”

Here I am, pretending to be embarrassed

For the first time in my life, I couldn’t move or speak.  Bizarre is one word I can think of to describe the situation that I found myself in.  Humiliated, embarrassed, and shocked are a few more.  But it was also funny.  Funny in that really sick way that we all enjoy every now and then, especially at someone else’s expense.
 
After that, things went to hell in a hand basket.  Both my sisters, who are self-professed instigators, started screaming, “Take it off.  Take it all off!”  That’s all it took before the others joined in and the party very quickly went from a love fest to me feeling like Piggy, in the Lord of the Flies.   I may have looked like I was enjoying the gyrating midget as I fed him grapes, but it was all I could do to hold it together and not throw myself off the second story balcony.

Dancing with the Stars

Dandy pumped and danced as the crowd cheered and egged him on.   He sang loudly as he moved around the dance floor, his huge fake teeth causing him to shower anyone in his way with spittle.  I drew the line at having him sit on my lap and tickle his belly, but I couldn’t resist throwing a few grapes in his general direction and watching him dive to try to catch them in his mouth.  At one point, he spun like a break dancer on the floor, his sheik’s headress flying out behind him, and we had to physically contain my sister, Becky, from joining in on the action.   She apparently has some fetishes I am unaware of.

Finally, my little Dandy collapsed on the floor, panting like a worn out puppy.  The music stopped and the manic giddiness disappeared and it became weird again.  We helped him pack up the remainder of his grapes and handed him his sheik’s clothes, thanking him for stopping by.  He told me to keep the balloons and shook my hand before turning to walk out of our lives forever.  I thought Becky would actually break down as she followed him out telling him that “if he was ever in the neighborhood . . .”

With friends like that . . .

For some reason, my friends think it’s funny to do stuff like that to me.  It has been suggested that they are actually being hostile when they send a Dandy or, on another occasion, a Naughty Nerd, but I choose to believe it comes from a good place and not an ugly place some crazy shrink has dreamed up.

I have my friend, Denise (who couldn’t make it to the party), to thank for Dandy.  I can say with all seriousness, he is one midget stripper that I will never forget.  And that, my friends, is just the kind of gift that keeps on giving.