I met a pimp
The first time I met a pimp was in 2009. Allow me to set the scene. I was in Las Vegas doing hoodrat shit with my college friends. For context, I grew up in San Diego and went to undergrad in San Jose. I can't even count how many times I have been to Vegas. However, I can count how many times I met a pimp. The squad and I loaded up in my 2004 Mazda 3, plugged in the Garmin GPS, connected the iPod classic to the car stereo system, and began our 8-hour pilgrimage to engage in the purest form of debauchery.
My friend group in college was composed of true Baydestrians who, in my opinion, are some of the dopest, funniest, caring, and kind people earthside. Growing up in Southern California and attending school in Northern California was like entering a cultural exchange program that changed me for the better.
Now back to this pimp. While in Vegas, my friends decided to reconnect with a girl that they went to high school with. I had met her before, when she visited campus; she was sweet and soft-spoken, had an average slim build, and she looked like kin to Lil Debbie from the White Girl Mob. When I saw her again in Vegas, let's just say that slim build was built out, and, as Jatavia Shakira “JT” Johnson proclaimed in one of my favorite motivational devotionals titled Okay, “titties sitting pretty and I’m looking like a snack.” The girl went from a Slim Jim to a smoked turkey leg. I, naive and completely oblivious to the factors that contributed to her physical transformation, continued to skip around Vegas as if all was well in the world.
Moving the story along, she invited us to the club with her boyfriend, and who are we to say no? We got dressed in our Wet Seal bodycon dresses, Jessica Simpson heels, and hit the strip like a pack of chocolate flamingos. This was the Vegas of old, so clubs were actually fun. People had sections, yet they also danced, sweated, and bumped bodies. We arrive at the entrance of the club, and my friend texts the smoked turkey leg girl to let her know we're outside because, for this night, standing in line was beneath us. She comes out to get us, and we sashay past the common folks and head towards their section.
I felt like Moses and the dance floor was the Red Sea. I gazed ahead as we moved towards the platform where men and women were gathered, looking like those sea urchins from The Little Mermaid that Ursula collected. This was the first time I asked myself, “wtf is going on here?” Nonetheless, I remain fully committed to the plot, so we proceed to enter the underworld. The men in the section were cool and controlled, while the women were alert and evasive. Once again, I was naive with no pimp radar, so I was vibing, moving between the section and the dance floor, having a ball!
The night at the club comes to an end, but this is Vegas, so we keep the party going. This is where things get a little hazy for me because, as a true millennial, I could throw them thangs back, if you know what I mean. What I do remember is that the smoked turkey leg girl invited us to their apartment. Now, my version of an apartment was the two-bed, one-bath, 650-square-foot place my roommate and I shared in the barrio of San Jose. This apartment was not that! Their apartment was some Ghost and Tasha from Power type shit. Anyways, I don't know how long we were there, or if any of this actually happened, but we left, and my Baydestrian friends started talking, and I heard them say something along the lines of “Damn she a bop for real, and that n—g is her pimp!” Reality slaps me across the face, and I exclaim, “HER PIMP! WHAT? HE WAS A PIMP?!”
Long story short, I met a pimp in 2009, and he was hella cool. I intended to tell this story and connect it to how present-day “community builders” ain’t nothing but pimps too, but I do not feel like getting deep. Which is a beautiful reminder that I do not always have to make something make sense, so here is where the story ends. I met a pimp, y’all.
