What I really mean by exotic dancing is that I'm a male stripper. And by male stripper, I don't mean one of those Chip-N-Dale fellows. I'm hired to deliver strip-o-grams to ladies in their homes and offices. You know, the gag gift that the secretary pool chips-in on so they can embarrass their frigid friend on her birthday.

For the most part, these jobs are run-of-the-mill encounters that rarely result in drama. The agency calls me with the info and I run through my checklist. I make sure the boom-box has batteries and is queued-up with Bon Jovi's ?Livin? on a Prayer.? Then I don one of my Velcro tear-off costumes. I have a few characters; doctor, cop, UPS and flower delivery guy. I load everything up into my Honda CRX and zip on over to the lucky gal's place and strut my stuff.

Like I said, most of these visits go off without a hitch. The recipient blushes and hides her face while her friends all screech in feigned horror, so proud of themselves for pulling off such hilarity. Well, the other day things didn't go so smoothly and I got into what you may call a ?situation.?

It started as a routine job out in the suburbs. Some friends chipped in to send this girl a strip-o-gram for her birthday, so I packed up and rolled out to the burbs. Now, when a group of girls spend a couple hundred bucks to embarrass their friend, they wanna be there. Curiously, when I arrived there was only one car in the driveway. Since I was wearing my UPS costume and pretending to deliver a package, I went ahead and knocked. A lady looking to be in her 60s answered.

I switched on Bon Jovi and started my routine. It was soon apparent that this lady didn't know what was going on, but I kept dancing. Just when I stripped off my costume I felt a sharp sting in my thigh. Looking down, I saw a blue blotch dripping down my leg. Then another sting, and another'I was being shot with a paint gun! Some crazy man was blasting me with paint pellets and shouting for me to get the hell out of his house.

Realizing that I was at the wrong place, I grabbed my stuff and hit the bricks. As I tore through the rose garden, my tender skin catching every thorn, I felt more welts forming on my bare back. This lunatic was unloading a barrage of paint balls on my posterior. I fumbled for the keys and got my bloody, paint covered butt in the car. I slammed that old Honda in gear and peeled rubber all the way back to the valley.

When I caught my breath, I performed a damage assessment. Except for some nasty abrasions on my nether-regions and 12 gnarly welts covered in blue paint, I was OK. In the heat of the melee I forgot about my car. Luckily, I had just installed some custom seat covers, a velour dash mat and a set of heavy-duty floor mats. The mud I tracked from the rose garden got sopped up by the floor mats, the blue paint on my back and butt was caught by the seat covers and the dash mat padded the blow caused by my boom-box being thrown into the car.

All in all it was a pretty harrowing experience. In the end, my agency contacted the offended party and a little pay-off calmed things down. The lady that was actually scheduled for my visit was sent another dancer and everyone was happy. I simply washed my seat covers and floor mats and got on with my life. I'm still dancing and the old Honda still gets me where I need to go.