Berlin

The hostel website mentioned nothing about strippers.

I had read all about a great view of downtown Berlin. There was no literature to prepare me for a great view of ass in my face. In reality, it's unlikely my subject was a stripper by trade. Only in spirit. (That spirit being, "Hm. I'm in a room of total strangers. I will remove my clothes.")

I suppose to some this story makes me a voyeur. A gawker. A horndog. But really, let's save these terms for the guys who make the effort to go to where women strip. These clubs of stripping, or strip clubs as I'm known to call them, are incredibly unsexy. Some guys go there to get their kicks, because what's sexier than a stranger with a fake name pretending to be interested in you after you give her money? Some guys claim they go for a laugh, for a good night out. Hey, here's a fun game to play with you and your bros next time you're in a strip club: Try picking out the girls who'd rather being doing something else with their lives. (Hint: The girls who start crying halfway through giving you a lap dance almost definitely don't want to be there.) Get guessing!

(It's not just that what goes on in a strip club isn't sexy - it's anti-sexy. It destroys sexy. With a strip club, you've got women (sexy), revealing outfits (sexy), and Van Halen riffs (at least "arguably sexy") and still the whole thing comes out all wrong.)

ANYWAY, the point is that there are bigger pigs than me out there. I'll admit I was far from being a gentleman, but it's not like I asked for it. It was just there. And anyways, as you'll see, I was a victim.

Like I said, I was staying in a hostel. I was sharing a six-bed mixed room with two travel pals, one overaged* and oversized** Italian, and a pair of dames I wouldn't be acquainted with until later.

(*For hostel standards, that is. This guy probably wasn't over 35. Many hostels have rules against anyone over 29 taking board. Virtually all hostels, however, have this rule in principle. It's just odd to think that a respectable adult wants to crash in a room full of early twenty-somethings, most of whom - from what I've seen - behave like they're still in their first year of college.)

(**And he was fat, too!)

After a day packed with seeing the city and a night spent touring the bars, my companions and I called it a night and made it back to the hostel at a quarter to three. Papa Meatball was already sound asleep. By 3:30, I was the only one awake in the room. By 3:45, I was starting to drift. Starting, until interrupted by doors unlocking and Germans whispering. Two fraulines. None too interested in practicing my German listening skills, I closed my eyes and passed out.

Minutes later, I'm awoken by the sound of a locker shutting. The room is dark, but I notice that there is a German girl - the one who closed the locker - standing right beside my bottom bunk. "That's a short skirt!" I observed to myself. As I got my bearings, I realized her skirt wasn't exceptionally short - her legs were exceptionally long. This girl was a giant. She was so tall, that standing as close to my bottom bunk as she was blocked my view of her face. She was easily six foot.

But before she even gave me time to fully appreciate her Amazonian growth rate, she was getting out of her clothes faster than a backup NBA point guard coming off the bench. In about fifteen seconds, this German giant was in nothing but a bra and thong. And three seconds later, it was just the thong.

As great as this moment was, it's not the point of the story. In brief, I'll say that this was a good look for her. This was a very good look for her. At the time, I realize that my rave reviews of this girl are über-objectifying: I haven't even seen her face yet; all I'm evaluating her by is her legs, tits, and ass. This made me feel bad. Nowhere near bad enough to pull away from her legs, tits, and ass, but still, kind of bad.

Her friend must be in bed already. I can't see her anywhere. My new exhibitionist friend, though, still has some washing up to do. So she parades (still pajamaless) to the washroom. Minutes later she's bedside again. Oops! Someone forgot to fill up her water bottle. Back on that catwalk, you. Cover up? Why bother! What are the chances that a depraved American is studying you like the Periodic Table. (Especially if the Periodic Table had killer legs and loved thongs.)

Shortly, the dream is over. The Periodic Table is in bed, and although I didn't get a great look, I think with her long legs she was able to get on the top bunk without using the ladder.

After maybe a minute, I sit up in bed as quiet as I can. Looking to my travel companions, I start waving my arms frantically, trying to say in bastardized sign language, "Did anybody else SEE that???????" They take no notice. I even tried appealing to Signor Chest Hair, but the fat Italian bastard is completely out of it. Nobody else in the room saw what I saw. And this is what got me in trouble.

If I knew one of my friends was awake, I wouldn't have been left to myself to replay the scene over and over and over in my head. I probably also wouldn't have bothered trying to think of the German words I needed to compliment, flatter, and eventually woo this total stranger. And I certainly wouldn't have actual gotten up to use this routine on the girl if I knew I was being watched.

But everyone else in the room was asleep, and so I was doomed. For me, there was no other option in the situation. What I was doing was insane, I know - I knew it then too. But hell, what just happened was insane. I'm hardly ever in the same room as a girl who's in nothing but her underwear. And with this one, there wasn't any begging.

It had only been maybe five minutes since she got in bed. "Screw it," I thought, and I got up. I mussed up my hair, thanked God I brushed my teeth before I got in bed, and leaned in to put some German moves on this German knockout. She was on her side, with her back to me. Couldn't tell if she was asleep or not. Oh well, here goes nothing. "Entschuldigung," I said as obnoxiously cocky as possible. (Pardon me.) She didn't hear me the first time, so I said it again. When she rolled over, I was fairly certain she had been sleeping, and I was positive that she was upset. I could guess that she was sleeping from the chain of drool that followed her bottom lip from the other side of the pillow. And I could be positive she was angry with me from the way she mashed her kicked-over-tombstone-like teeth at me and the way she glared at me with her one eyebrow.

I tried to say something, but all I could hear was Bill Paxton crying, "Game over, man! Game over!" I stood there stupid and speechless, with my mouth as wide open as hers. This was not part of the plan. This was SO not part of the plan.

Sleeping Beauty was pissed. "Was!" she growled. (What!?) All knowledge of German vanished. All knowledge of women vanished. All knowledge of the '96-97 Chicago Bulls vanished, and hitherto that'd been a lock. I knew nothing. My mouth moved while my brain bailed:

"Hi. Well, hello! Say, do you know if there's a Kebab stand open in this area?"

"Was? Kebab?"

"Yeah, Kebab - I'm starving. Know of a place? I thought I heard you speaking German on your way in, and so I thought you might know the area."

"I'm not from here. If I was from here, why would I be in a hostel?"

"Ah, I did not consider that. That's an excellent point." It really was. "Ha, why didn't I think...Well in that case, I'll just leave you to your rest." I think at this point I saluted her. "I'll probably turn in too, then. There's always Kebab tomorrow, right?" She made no response to my fast-food philosophy. "OK, good night." Still nothing.

I slunk back into bed, defeated, embarrassed, and disappointed. But disappointed mostly in myself. In fifteen minutes, I went from loving her to despising her all on account of her looks. Surely, I'm better than that. I'm better than those jerkoffs who hang out in strip clubs. I respect women well enough to see the beauty in their character as well as their form. I know well enough that looks are fading, and who a person is on the inside can last a lifetime. That's what's really beautiful about someone. Who cares if this girl's got an exquisite body? That doesn't make her my soul mate. And who cares if she has a unibrow? Behind that unibrow might be the one person in the world who understands me more than anyone else. I had been an ass. And maybe I wasn't going to make any passes at this girl, and maybe I'd never do anything romantic for her - I still wanted to offer some kind of noble gesture.

"Say, I don't suppose you want a Kebab, do you?"

"Fich dich!"

Well fine, Frau Peter Gallagher. Why don't you and your ugly unibrow just go to ugly people hell? Lousy ugtard.