When I say “b*tches”, all my b*tches know who I’m talking about. I’m talking about my spa girls. I spent an inordinate amount of time during my shifts at the spa when I worked there. We would all huddle together in our little dugout and revel in our fascination with Jerry Springer, Jersey Shore, and Maury Povich. The sense of comraderie and sisterhood was exemplified by the fact that many times, we would end up with synchronous menstrual cycles. Either that, or the fact that we all shared the same mutual hatred over the current bastard in a Maury segment we were watching, who wouldn’t own up to being the father of the child.
I do miss them-well, some of them. Cardinal rule of being a skanky spa girl-you have to have resentments towards one of the other girls. But on the other hand, everyone has to have their favourite as well.
I wonder what they are all up to now. Are they still stuck in their little underground, secret bubble? Hopping from one spa to another spa? Or dipping into other avenues of sex work?
Some of these girls were raised in very unhealthy environments. Some of them were abused when they were young, and were placed from foster home to foster home, ran away from home, and prostituted to make ends meet. Then again, other girls were in community college and trying to pay off loans. And then there was me. The girl with the Bachelors of Psychology who wanted to work at a spa because she couldn’t even handle waitressing or server jobs. Ideally, I would have loved to be a neuroscientist at this point plumming my way through my research thesis about adrenchrome and it’s antiprotective effects on cancer. But my grades weren’t good enough to get into grad school. I blame that on the inordinate amount of prescription drugs I was on during my university years to deal with my hypochondriac phase and my anticonvulsants.
Anyway, the glue that held all of us together-was the fact that we needed money. Some girls have been in this industry for years and years on end, some just needed it as a temporary way to pay off student loans.
When I think about those who didn’t even graduate highschool, who floated through life with no education whatsoever, who couldn’t even tell you what the quadratic formula was or knew how standard it was to include x and y in math equestions, my heart sinks. My heart truly goes out to them.
The truth is, you need at least a highschool diploma to make a decent, sustainable salary that can support yourself and possibly a small family. Without it, you’re reduced to minimum wage jobs. These girls chose to stick to sex work for years and years, since they were so habituated to it all at this point.
It’s interesting, but I recently stumbled across an opportunity with a life insurance company that was willing to hire anyone without any educational qualifications in order to work for them. All you needed was a valid SIN and some photo ID and you were in. It was pretty easy to get hired. It was almost as easy as it was to get hired at the spa. Seriously. They would hire anyone off the street. THe branch manager who spoke to me for the initial interview said that he had a pHD-public highschool diploma. He was an immigrant who landed in Canada without any post-secondary education. Yet, he said that working for this company gave him to dream to move up the ladder and make a substantial yearly salary.
Jim Beulne is actually a rags to riches success story as well. He was abused by his biological father and lived in 50 different foster homes. He didn’t graduate highschool. He decided to turn his life around and decided to work for this company, and now, he’s married with kids, and is a millionaire. He speaks at many conventions to show others, his minions, how if him, a street kid, can get off his butt and turn his life around-anyone can. It wasn’t impossible.
At this point, I have to find recruits to join me as well. Because as you all know, in order to really make mony with this company, you have to hire other people to sell life insurance as well. You made money off of their sales and comissions as well, which was why this was a good incentive to get more people into this.
I was browsing through my cell phone contact list, and I’m awfully bad at approaching people and asking them for these kinds of things. But then, I remembered Joanna, err..Jasmine, and Tess(or Linda). They both didn’t finish grade 10 and were foster children who hopped around from one place to another. I’m kind of tempted to contact them again and share this opportunity with them. I want to reach my hand out and take them out of their hole, and offer them an opportunity to work somewhere where they could actually list this on their resume, and build up some credibility, legally.
I personally don’t know what both of them are up to right now. Are they still locked inside the sex work industry? Living a secret life and hiding from society? Did they decide to go back to school? Who knows. Some end up trapped in their social environments for decades, and seem find with it-because they are so used to it. Much in the same way someone would habituate to background noise like murmurs in a public library.
There always does seem to be a way out, an exception to the rule. People seem to get mired with comfort and familiarity though. It’s just a part of who we are.
Happy Endings 