The Subway Stripper, Part 2 / I don’t like hot dogs!!

The girls are all wearing name tags and have with them carry-on totes, the kind with wheels. I've noticed this prior to the black guy's arrival, but believed that they were fellow scrapbookers. Large totes of paper, stickers, and scissors is... hell, a prerequisite for any serious scrapbooker. I remember that two of the girls were named Kelli. Kelli B and Kelli G.

We've been on the train for maybe 5 minutes and were making out way through downtown Portland. Somewhere near Pioneer Courthouse Square, we stop and the elderly lady sitting in the seat next to Anj gets up and leaves and a black guy with a green sweatshirt, jeans, and a green and white striped shirt gets on.

I notice him right away because he has the hood on the sweatshirt up, which strikes me as odd on a day when it is actually not raining in Oregon. As a matter of fact, we'd been getting sunbreaks all day. The hood up usually gives a clear signal of "Don't mess with me, I'm scary."

So of course, he chooses to sit in the middle of an estrogen field of fifteen girls. There are three next to him, four across from him, Anj and I standing in the car connection, and another six or so in seats beyond us.

He takes down his hood and looks around. "Kelli B. and Kelli G! Hey now, why are you all wearing name tags?" He grins with an I'm as charming as they come smile and waits for an answer.

The girls, who had been having individual, quiet conversations up to this point, hesitate for a moment. The expression of "scary black dude at 12:00" clearly written on their faces.

"I bet I know. You're all here to go clubbing, eh? One of those other clubs. Those not so straight clubs. Those clubs to the... left."

The girls are all saying "Hey, hey, hey... woa." with an equally horrified expression on their faces, but the guy is still grinning at them with the whole, "I'm more charming than snot" pose. Clearly teasing.

One of the girls hesitantly replies, "We're here for a bachelorette party."

"Yeah, the bride didn't even know we were all coming. We surprised her." Came from another voice somewhere across from him and to the right.

"It's actually all of us." another voice said, pointing to the six girls beyond Anj and I, all of whom were wearing the same sort name tag.

"Get back! Really? That's cool. That's cool." He thought for a moment, looking at them. "I bet I can guess which one the Bride is." Nodding his head for emphasis.

The girls exchanged a look of "hey, why not" and replied, "Okay... go ahead!"

I'm eavesdropping on the conversation. Anj and I had been having one, but at some point-- probably the whole "to the left" thing-- I got distracted. So I've heard the challenge get dropped. Keep in mind we are on a train that likes to jostle you around a bit, so what I expected was that the guy would simply stay in his seat while looking the girls over and making his determination.

That's not what happened.

The guy bounces out of his seat and to the front of the rows of girls and puts his hand to his chin in classic Thinker's pose. "Hmmm..." At which point, a flood of hearty laughter fills the car and I realize that this little conversation has had a larger impact than just the immediate audience.

Proceeding to walk the aisle way more gracefully than a cat on the prowl he takes a moment to look each of the girls over trying to ascertain which of them looked like the most likely party. It could not have been easy since, at this point, he had the complete attention of all of them and they in turn were grinning at him like Cheshire cats.

Stopping about midway, he looks at one girl and says "It's you, isn't it. It's you."

"Nope."

"Now wait, I didn't say 'final answer'. I was just thinking out loud. It's not you."

Another round of hearty laughter fills the MAX train and he prowls some more.

"Hmmm... maybe it's you. Nah..."

He does this for about two minutes before sitting down and looking at the girl sitting behind me. She looks as though she's had the flu for about two weeks and has dragged herself out of bed based solely on the fact that she wasn't going to miss this party for anything. Death be damned.

"It's YOU! Final answer. You have that sick to your stomach, 'Oh God, I'm getting married!' look about you. It's you."

The girl, who apparently had been sick for the past few days, had a completely shocked look on her face. "No... it's not me..."

The other girls, who were having trouble containing their chuckles and giggles at his choice, piped up. "You know, you're missing a very important way of telling which one of us it is."

"Right! It's green. I'm wearing green, so it has to be someone who is wearing green."

Confused looks were exchanged and more laughter is echoing around the train car.

"No. You forgot to see who was already married!" Immediately, thirteen sets of hands buried themselves beyond view.

"Rings! I forgot to look at rings!" He gets up again and begins prowling once more, attempting to find hands and fingers vacant of ring, then sits back down and points at another girl. "It's you! No ring on your hand."

The girls are laughing, giggling, and chuckling, and the woman who has been chosen looks like she just swallowed a frog. "Uh, no... it's not me." She holds up a hand to show him the rings.

"Well... yeah, but those are on the wrong hand! It's you. I know it's you."

More giggles and a voice pipes up to say, "No. She hates men. She's 'been there, done that'."

"Oh."

He ponders his decision, chatting with the girls, for a few more minutes until his eyes fall on one last victim. The only girl without a name tag, without a suitcase, and without a ring. "Ah-ha! It's you!"

The girls all grin and a round of "yep, it's her" echoes through the air.

"Yeah. I knew it was her. She's wearing green and I'm psychically connected to everything green."

There is muffled laughter coming from everywhere on this one, mostly because I think many people-- including me-- couldn't tell if he really thought he was serious, but the muffles turned into full force hearty laughter when the first girl, we'll call her Sickly, piped up and said, "Yeah... that's why he chose me first."

Not a spec of green anywhere on her.

Now that the show was over, or so we thought, we turned back to our conversation, but about 90 seconds later turned back-- just in time to see the funniest damn thing I can remember about the ride.

The guy and the girls had obviously been having a conversation about the Bachelorette party and whether or not there would be a stripper there. I deduced this because the guy was now slowly and seductively trying to peel his green sweatshirt away from his chest. All while humming the cheesy music you find only in porn movies. He did this sitting down for a minute, but then stood up and proceeded to go into full act using the end poles from one of the seats to complete his act.

The full car was in uproarious laughter once more.

"I know, we're going to call you The Subway Stripper!" yelled one of the girls. After this comment, there was a bit of back and forth about whether they could use that title since we were technically on a lightrail, but I think the name stuck.

There was a round of picture taking with the guy and the bride, who was blushing as expected.
"Ho, wow! Is that digital? Oh great. Let me see the picture. I need to make sure I look cute enough for her, otherwise you'll have to take a few more."

The girl who had been taking the picture obliged and showed him the results.

"Okay, I guess I'm cute enough."

The Subway Stripper.

After this, he broke out into a lusty rendition of the song "Lean on Me" with a few of the girls singing along.

All in all, it was the most interesting train ride I've had in awhile. The unexpected making for a memorable day.

Once I got back to my car my head was pounding from lack of food and coffee, but I was going to be late picking up the girls if I stopped so I forged on. When I finally got to TJ's house, my head was killing me and I couldn't do much more than wince whenever I moved so I didn't have time to ask any questions about how their day had been.

But once in the car, Short Person wasted no time filling me in.

"Mom, you need to tell TJ I don't like HOT DOGS!"

"Hot dogs? Honey, I didn't pack you hot dogs."

"Oh."

"How was your day. Did you have fun?"

"Yeah."

"Did you get into trouble?"

"Yeah. They said I had to have one more bite or no Popsicle. Mom, you need to tell TJ I DON'T LIKE HOTDOGS!"

"Hot dogs?"

"I DON'T LIKE THEM! and they said 'one more bite!' "

Clearly, she's upset. But I hadn't packed hotdogs. I'd packed mac and cheese, which I knew they had eaten because I had brought two and one was given back to me.

LOL... She told me to tell TJ about three more times after that, including that I needed to do it before she went over the next time so that TJ would remember. I didn't know what to say, so I went ahead and did as requested via email.

Guess what? Apparently, they did have hotdogs.

I cracked up laughing. We now all know how she feels about hot dogs and I'm impressed as a loon at how well the short person did communicating with me.

The ending to a very long, very odd, day.