Of Cranberry Juice and Happy Endings

And speaking of jokingly lamenting about illegal activities -- I've almost never even been propositioned by a hooker. In fact, when I was at UNM in Albuquerque in the mid 1990s, I really was never sure if those women in their horrid outfits on Central were prostitutes or not.

I think the first time one of my friends ever admitted interacting with a hooker was on a trip to play Hawaii with the UNM Lobo basketball team. One of our best players -- who was a wild partying kinda guy -- came back from a late night out telling us about how he'd been talking to the "most beautiful hooker" he'd ever seen. He said midway through the conversation "she" told him she was a man (yeah, like the great Kinks song), but he didn't believe her. So, he told us, he reached in her pants and did indeed find...well, you know. Have to wonder how much of that story is true vs. oh-what-was-that-Irish- movie-where-the-guy-finds- out-too-late-that- that-woman-is-a-man thing?

Anyway, until a couple years ago, I'd never once been propositioned, at least that I knew of. Then one night after drinks after watching my friend, Neil, in a show on Broadway, I'd decided to walk home to sober up a little bit. As I walked through mid-town at like 1am on a Thursday night, a car pulls up next to sidewalk and the window rolls down. Like a good citizen should, I step over to the car figuring somebody's needing directions or something. Nope, some nasty ass lady asks me if I "want to party". Uh, no thanks.

Believe it or not, by the time I got back to my apartment in the 60s on the east side, I'd been propositioned two more times! From zero to three in one night!

The only other time I've been propositioned that I know of was one early evening also in midtown Manhattan. My friend and I were walking out of a hotel, and some pretty, young woman asks us if we're "looking for a good time". We weren't but I was curious how much it'd cost, so I asked. I don't remember her answer.

A friend of mine who does frequent hookers when he's traveling told me one night when we were at a hotel bar in Manhattan (he travels to Manhattan, which is one of the places he frequents them) told me that the best way to tell if a woman's a hooker is if she orders a cranberry juice, no alcohol in it. Wonder if that's true. Never seen a woman order a cranberry juice no alcohol that I can recall anyway.

Finally, I do love getting massages (needing one right now, actually, as my neck is killing me this morning), and I've been to many different places in NYC and have had massages in New Orleans, Puerto Rico and other places. Never once, not one single time, has anyone ever offered me the "happy ending". Like my lament about the homeless drug dealer below -- it's not that I'd accept it anyway. But couldn't they at least offer it?!

Then again, maybe, like the cranberry juice, they are offering it, and I just never picked up on whatever the underground signal is.