How I Started Dancing

            Here I was, practically hyperventilating, sitting on the front porch frantically trying to think of a way to fix my financial meltdown. Boyfriend comes out to sit with me and calm me down. Being the rational one in the relationship, he suggested we just think about realistic ideas of what we could do.

            Backing up a little: I had just moved hundreds of kilometres away from my home with a fairly new boyfriend and a few of his friends. I was starting university in the fall and I had moved away with nothing but optimism, naivety and a couple hundred dollars. Before I knew it, it was the end of August and I still had no job (well, I was in training for a waitressing job but wouldn't see a paycheque for 3 weeks). I also only had 83 cents left in my account. Boyfriend was also very tight for money, having just payed his portion of first/last month's rent, payed for the moving truck, gas and new furniture.

Running through my head were numbers. Just numbers.

            If I am to work 20 hours a week (as I'm in school and can't / shouldn't / don't want to put in more than that), and any job I could get would be minimum wage ($10.25), I would be making $820 per month. Possibly with a waitressing job, I could make the servers wage ($8.90) plus tips (which I've heard works out to being max $15/hour, then I would make $1200 per month -- absolute maximum.

            Rent: $600

            Food: $300

            Bus Pass: $100

            Misc (shampoo, etc): $40

            Okay so for the mere basics of living, I would need $1040 ish. And that's with no luxuries, no allowance of going off budget, no nothing.

            To sum up: Fucked.

            I didn't have 3 weeks to wait for my pay to come in. I had 3 days.

            I look up at Boyfriend and jokingly say, "Looks like I'm gonna need to start stripping in order to afford rent."

            We both half-heartedly laughed it off. But wait… Maybe I could…

            Putting aside years of traumatic self-image problems, and barely being able to be naked in my own home, I contemplate the idea of maybe, possibly….dare I say it?...stripping.

            With the idea now on the table, it's looking like my only option. At least until I can start working at the restaurant.

            Alright. Here we go...