Diary of a Clown/I Got Your Number
By Susan aka Polkadots the Clown

When I returned back to the office of “Western Onion” (the singing telegram company I worked at in the mid nineteen eighties), after delivering a singing telegram, I was greeted by a roomful of smirks. My manager loudly blurts out…”Susan, there’s a dude on line two requesting you for a strip-o-gram!” “But I don’t do strip-o-grams”. “He claims he saw you doing one on Wall Street yesterday and”……..”Give me that phone!” I then took the phone and very calmly and clearly stated back…”I’m sorry, you must have me mistaken for someone else, I don’t do strips”. Then with every ear and eye in the room on me despite of all the ringing phones, I came back with….”Yes, I’m skinny with brown curly hair…..well…yes, I WAS there but….didn’t you tell my boss Wall Street? “…….”Oh, I remember you! We met again after the telegram in the elevator, but why did you tell my boss you saw me strip?” “Dinner, Saturday?”…..”I don’t know, you see I live in Jersey and”……..”Well yea, 14th street is one of the path train stops”….”Lobster and a comedy show?”…..
Well 5:00 sounds good”. …….. “Wear something fancy?”, “Sure”. After hanging up the phone, all of the smirks had suddenly turned into looks of shock. Although I was twenty seven at the time, I had a reputation for being as naive as they come. Suddenly I felt a devilish look come over my face, and with all eyes on me I grabbed my 2 bags of props and costumes and 35 pre blown helium balloons , and off I went to my next set of telegrams and deliveries.

While outside, I began having second thoughts about what just took place. But then I got to thinking, how could I possibly pass up Lobster and a comedy show with a good looking Jewish stockbroker? I mean here I was barely ninety five pounds and living off of street vender food which I woofed down on the way to telegrams. With all the heavy stuff I carried around as well as rushing to make my schedule, I pretty much burnt off everything I consumed.
The big day had arrived. I probably spent a good hour just deciding what to wear and how to do my hair. When it comes to travelling from Jersey City to NYC, dressing to the nines doesn’t exactly set well with me. We’re talking twenty minutes of walking to the bus and train as well as walking up massive amounts of stairs leading to the train, not to mention all the walking that will be happening once I get to the city as well as the trip back. This is all to be done in high heels and a snug dress, but I thought lobster and a good looking Jewish stock broker might be worth it. Well, you can imagine my surprise, when my date shows up in jeans and a bulky sweater! Today I would probably give him hell or at least a couple of sarcastic remarks. I tended to let things go back then for fear of confrontation. I mean, why tell someone to dress up when you yourself look like you’re going to do laundry?!
Anyway, I was definitely appropriately dressed because the restaurant was very upscale. Despite Michael’s attire, I found him very attractive, but as the evening went on, I started feeling very uncomfortable by the defensive way he was acting toward just about everyone around us. In the restaurant he complained so much that the waiter even threw in some freebies. Later on, he was ready to start a fight with the cab driver, not to mention some people on line to the comedy club as well as people walking down the street.
We were the first people to walk into the comedy club. Michael insisted on sitting in the seat directly in front of the stage. I tried like crazy to talk him out of it, but I might as well have been talking to a brick wall!
To make a long story short…..of all the eight comics on the stage that night, there wasn’t one who didn’t make a wise crack about our difference in attire! One of the woman comics really let him have it, saying this would probably be our first and last date!

It all made sense after the show when the manager of the club came over and told us that since we were such good sports with the comics, drinks were on the house. This was the only time the whole evening I heard Michael agreeing with someone! Needless to say, the comedienne turned out to be right; this was our first and last date! We ended the evening by saying goodnight and he very aggressively gave me a very tongey good night kiss which I was totally turned off by.
After numerous calls of Michael asking me out after our date from Hell, and me making excuse after excuse, those requests were replaced with, obscene phone calls causing me to have my number changed. As far as the stripping thing goes, he later told me he wanted to see how far I would go! With all this said, I definitely had HIS number which is why he no longer had mine!