Showgirl to shopgirl
It’s everywhere. You are bombarded with facts and figures on the television, newspapers jump from the stands, screaming that the bottom has fallen out of the world’s economy.
People are being thrown into unemployment and onto the dole queue. Are we going to see a sea of showgirls scrambling to hold on to their jobs or having to take a day job to survive?
From corsets and wigs to suits and briefcases -鈥� they’re still forms of drag, but would it be an easy transition?
As I’ve earned my living performing for the last eight years, I have started to get a little nervous. Do I have to consider an alternative career? I always wanted to work in a video store like Muriel -鈥� is that an option?
If showgirls are thrust into the mainstream workforce, we’ll see them thinking outside the box. There will be straight women with huge eye make-up and hair-dos who will only just squeeze into a taxi, saying Trying a new stylist honey! Glitter lips and eyelashes will be compulsory on men and women. With lips pouting and eyelashes flapping, we would unleash a hoard of supermodel-like creatures on society.
Chiropractors will be full of women with terrible back pain as they are talked into the highest stilettos by a repositioned showgirl working at a shoe shop. Stilettos would be worn 24 hours a day -鈥� men would be given an option of black loafer or crystal spike heel.
Let’s not start on suits -鈥� tweed would share billing with disco sequin and a nice two-way stretch gabardine.
Impromptu numbers would start sprouting up like weeds. Suddenly the store assistant would be on top of the fresh veggie section belting out Whitney or Mariah into the banana microphone she/he is grasping.
God help the world if showgirls had to enter day-to-day work life. It’s hard even for me to gaze in the mirror sometimes during the day done up like a sore toe.
I can only imagine what old Doris across the road would think if I turned up looking a million dollars, Hi love, I’m here to mow your backyard. High heels and grass are fabulous for each other -鈥� it’s called air-ating the lawn. Well, that’s what I heard!
