Party Crasher, fairly reeking of musk and Diet Coke, is finally reporting on his trip from Lake City “Where every third business seems to be a front for a drug-running operation.”

It was a night like any other at Rick’s: the doorman said that he “probably wouldn’t have any results until the morning,” but the manager on duty, a large, affable man named Jim, assured me that the D.J. had the Internet hooked up and would announce results at nine.

Meanwhile, things were exciting in a different way: a very talented young lady named Sky performed a dance that included twisting her spine and putting her ass on a parallel to her face and flexing her vaginal muscles in a twenty-first century twist on a come-hither look. Off to the side were the contested lap-dancing booths. I could somehow see a stripper’s face and her feet at the same time: they were both poking up out of a booth like a grotesque puppet show. The man in the booth didn’t seem to mind, though.

Outside, a dancer was telling me that she wasn’t allowed to vote because she didn’t bring her “voting-card thing.” “Holy fucking shit,” I exclaimed, “You were totally disenfranchised!” Jim added, with a note of humor, that the polling places probably would be biased against women who looked like they danced at Rick’s. “I was disenfranchised,” said the stripper. Then she shrugged and started reapplying her makeup.

Just as I was about to compliment a stripper on her breasts (I got a little stuck on whether I should refer to them as fun-bags or sweater-puppies,) the d.j. came over the house speakers and announced that the proposition was winning.

Nobody applauded. All eyes were, predictably, on the spread-legged woman on the stage. But somebody must’ve been excited about the announcement, because there was ejaculate all over the handicapped stall of the men’s room.

I engaged Jim with a discussion about whether lap dances, now probably saved by the will of the people, will now be called either freedom dances or a Full Nickles. I decided probably the former, since our mayor doesn’t seem to have a lap anymore (did you see that Vanity Fair photo? He’s bigger than Daley now!) And then my cab arrived. I was about to head downtown to visit the Sheraton and the big local races and, paradoxically since I was coming from an alleged den of iniquity, get really frickin’ drunk.

In the cab, I had a discussion with my cabbie, a fairly new Somali transplant who was pro-Bush (“Because he’s a Christian.”) He hadn’t heard of the anti-lap dance law, but he was against strip clubs because, and I quote: “Women all got pussy. My mother got pussy, you know? We must keep our women covered.” Clearly, this will remain a divisive issue. But hey, ladies, it looks like opportunity still knocks: