During an innocent little conversation over coffee and dessert at Atlanta's Intermezzo Cafe, I mentioned to Patrick: I've never been to a strip club. I explained that Chicago has those silly laws about nudity and alcohol not being allowed in the same joint, so strip clubs are located primarily in the distant 'burbs, and no one had ever had the gumption to drive that far for naked ladies.

Lucky for me, Atlanta has no such restriction on boobies and booze.

We had a little noder get-together at the Pink Pony, located in a Corporate Park off I-85. There were 5 of us: Patrick, Elena, Chris, Ted and me. After paying the $10 cover (the doorman told us to tip the cover charge girl, but I have no idea why she would deserve a tip for taking my money) we headed into the club. Inside, there was much more nudity than I had expected. There were four dancing areas, and then numerous lapdances and naked workers all over. There were also more female patrons than I had expected. There were several coed parties, as well as some groups of girls who were themselves scantily clad, in addition to one or two lesbians. It seemed that there was a decent mix of people, although the majority were white 30/40-something white men in khaki pants.

Having Patrick around sure does help with the service. Within a minute of looking for a table, one of the waitresses offered to find one for us, but then just seated us at the edge of a runway before taking our drink orders. Bottles of cheap beer were $5, and anything decent was a dollar or two more, so I drank Miller Lite. I tried to drink slowly since we were low on cigarettes and cash, but pilsner goes down too easy.

After about 10 minutes the shock of being around a lot of naked women started to wear off, and I was paying attention to the attitudes in the club. I was told that this is not the classiest of clubs, but it seemed pretty nice to me. The girls all looked well tanned and buffed, and the men were all well-behaved. One of the things that struck me was the variety of women: short, skinny, tall, white, black, tanned, large breasted, small breasted, zaftig, you name it, there was something. No 400 pound ladies or pregnant women, but a nice variety of body type. Many of the shot girls had their tongues pierced - I'm guessing for the excitement of the men who pay to watch them give mock fellatio to a test tube shot.

It being my first time in a strip club, my mates thought it would be funny to get me a lap dance. They picked out a girl and wouldn't tell me who it was. After Chrystal Waters did her main stage performance, the girls working at the Pink Pony did a showcase walk after which they did 2-for-1 lapdances. Ted and Elena went to get my stripper, and I waited nervously at the table. They returned with a cute, wholsome looking redhead in a little plaid dress who proceeded to rub her breasts in front of me and slide her hair in my face and jiggle her butt between my knees for the next six minutes. They told me later that they'd gone out to find the goth stripper, but couldn't get her so they got someone who wasn't terribly skanky. I can tell you that the stripper smelled good - like Herbal Essence.

I made it out of there spending only $22, but I only got 2 drinks outta the deal.