Weird day. Not bad, but weird.

Stop 3 on the Saturday afternoon Akron crawl. Lusty Adventures is the most hit-or-miss of the bars I tend to visit. It's either a solid disappointment or a solid success. There's hardly ever anything in between. I usually think of it as a place desperate for new talent, because over the years I've been coming here, it has gotten steadily older, fatter and staler. But every now and then, someone new pops in and I happen to pop in during the few weeks or months she lasts, and my low expectations get exceeded. But even when that happens, there will be something weird about it.

The neighborhood is sketchy as hell. The parking lot is monitored, though, so the car seems safe. From the outside, the place looks like it might fall down. The inside looks sturdier. The bar area, on the right as you enter, actually is kind of impressive. Lots of carved, dark wood gives the place its one touch of class. Turn from the bar though, and class disappears. The vibe is cold, dilapidated and a bit dirty. The main room is the only one that matters. A second room, probably just as large, has a pool table that no one uses, except the dancers who set things on it occasionally. The second room is also that passage to the men's room, where you do NOT want to go. The clientele is mixed. Young and old. Black and white. Strung out and sober-ish. I never feel totally safe here, even though I've never seen anything worse than a dancer catfight - a pretty common occurrence. They yell at each other a lot here.

This day, I never even bought a drink. That was a first. I walked in the door and was immediately face to face with Honey, the slimmest, youngest, cutest girl I'd seen at Lusty's in literally years. She can't be a day over 19. Very light-skinned black. Glasses. Tiny. She asked me if I was interested in a dance. Yep. Count me in. I went for something like 5 or 6. I kept hoping she would perk up to some of the conversational bait I kept throwing out, but it just never happened. Her body did well enough. Good, tight, consistent grind. But her mind was a million miles away. At one point, I asked her how long she had worked there and she said 7 months. That surprised me. One, I hadn't seen her until now. Two, she displayed the lack of interest of a jaded veteran. I let the hands roam up top and wanted to see whether she'd object to kitty play, but two old guys at one of the low tables opposite the bar were damned near staring a hole through us. I honestly thought, is that her grandpa and her uncle? Weird experience. Finally, I had to admit I wasn't going to break the ice, and neither of the other two dancers I saw interested me - the one with the fangs and the really skinny one who tends the bar sometimes - so I moved on. Since I was getting dances from the second I walked in, the bartender never came down to interrupt, and I walked out of there without handing the bar a cent. I want to go back and take another run at Honey, but the way things go at Lusty's she and I won't pick the same day to go in until she weighs 190 pounds.