playboy…and to weave or not to weave.
2 Apr 2008 by Charlotte Mutesha, No Comments »
Oh, the things we do for money…
One of my jobs is working at the Chicago Stadium Club on the Lexus Club Level at the United Center for Bulls and Blackhawks games and concerts. Really, all that we do there is laugh and make fun of people and ourselves. Occassionally, we help the customers when they’re not being drunk douchebags.
I have come to realize that me and the other girls I work with at the front of the club are like the ladies on The View. We’re all quite different, but outspoken and opinionated. There’s Kathy, a 50-something year old mother of two guys that are my age. She’s a pleasantly plump divorcee with salt-and-pepper hair who also works at Soldier Field and Sox Park (as I do!), and she talks to much and sometimes speaks without a modicum of tact.
Then there are Mershant and Lola. Mershant is in her mid-20s, has a 3-year-old daughter with the mouth of a sailor and a 7-year-old who thinks he knows everything about sex. Mershant is the practical jokester of the place and is going to get me fired–I’m waiting for the day when like Rocky or Peter Wirtz walk through and I’m laying on the ground from laughing at her so hard. I’ll be toast. Lola is in her mid-30s, but you’d think she’s 25. She’s from Nigeria and has lived here with her pastor husband for five years, and their kids are home in Africa with their family. She’s funny too, but definitely the voice of reason and very opinionated.
Julie joined our gaggle of geese a couple months ago. She’s a single, smart, bubbly blonde in her mid-40s who works for Macy’s, and she used to cocktail at this same club years ago back during the heyday of Jordan when the Bulls were the dream team.
And then there’s me, the (thankfully) childless college student who isn’t afraid to break out in an Irish riverdance or can-can in the halls when they fun music is playing in the stadium before and during the games, and doesn’t give a fuck about the “higher-ups” and doesn’t take the tight-ass corporate policies seriously. I’m also known for re-enacting the LuvaBulls’ (the Bulls’ “cheerleaders”/hussies) dance moves, which is completely inappropriate. They don’t pay me enough to feign friendliness to the drunk men who think they’re funny and want to take to-go drinks out of the club when they’re not supposed to.
Anyway. Yesterday Julie was telling me to really enjoy this summer, as the summer of ’09 entails graduation (finally…) and maybe finding a “real job.” Mmhmm. We were talking about Chicago-based magazines, and Kathy said, “Oh, isn’t there a Playboy office downtown somewhere? Christie Hefner used to come here to the club all the time!” (Christie is Hugh’s daughter and the CEO of Playboy Enterprises).
So, the concensus was that I could be a contributing feature writer for Playboy. I think JET is in Chicago too. Mershant walked up, and I informed her of my goal to work for Playboy. Mershant is slim and gorgeous, but wears a size 10 or 11 because she never really lost the weight around her midsection after having her daughter. She pulled up her jacket, exaggeratingly puffed out her post-child belly through her polyester shirt (which is also big because she eats like a man), and said, “Cool. When you start working for them, tell ’em I want to model for them. I’d be the first centerfold with serious stretch marks.”
Later, the conversation turned to hair.
Mershant and Lola currently have matching hair–long, dark and straight, with bangs. I told them that I wanted to do my hair like them so we could be triplets, except my bangs are too long and I didn’t want to cut them (you know how long it takes for us black women to grow our hair out).
”Just get a wig like mine,” Lola said. “It’s fast, and easy, you take it off at night, and you can change it–go from long to short whenever!”
”No, do a weave like MINE, Charlotte.” Mershant told me. “What if you’re bending down to pick something up and the wig falls off?”
”But it won’t fall off!” said Lola. “There’s a comb in the back that secures it on your head!”
”It doesn’t matter!” Mershant rebutted. “One time at church, my sister had hair attached and she was doing a dance up front and spinning around and her hair flew off! And she didn’t realize it and just kept going! I was laughing my ass off.”
”Mershant. Why would you laugh at someone who’s in the spirit?” said Lola. “She was obviously feeling the Holy Ghost and in the moment! I wouldn’t laugh at her.”
I re-told them my classic story of when I was a freshman on the diving team in high school. My hair was braided, and my mom had sewn a ponytail to my head so it would stay on. One day during practice, I did a standard back dive. As soon as I hit the water, I knew my ponytail had come off and was floating in the water somewhere. I resurfaced and grabbed it, only to look up to my entire team and our coach standing over the edge of the pool.
”Oh, my God, Charlotte…” my best friend Jessie had said. “Oh my God. Are you okay? We thought you knocked your HEAD off!”
”Um, yeah no,” I responded as I re-tied the damp, chlorinated, fuzzy ponytail weave back on my head.
Kathy, Julie, Lola and Mershant was dying laughing.
”See?” Mershant said. “That’s why you do a solid weave, like MINE.”
To weave, or not to weave…that is the question. I’ll probably keep my hair the way it is now.
Anyway. I have to run to work, but now that you have a background of some of the characters I associate with there, you’ll be more prepared for the stories.
I also have confessional backstage stories about our celebrity sightings–including Bruce Springsteen, Joakim Noah, Kevin Hinrich, and Tony Parker. We walk past hockey players all the time, but I wouldn’t recognize any if they came up and punched me in the face.
More on all that later.
