Day Two of nitpicking The Twelve Days Of Christmas

I had no idea prostitutes, strippers, escorts, hookers, or any other "frowned on by the church ladies" profession for young women were so uptight about declaring their earnings.

You learn something new every day.

Now, obviously, the writer of the song The Twelve Days Of Christmas probably didn't intend for the "nine ladies dancing" to represent "ladies of the night" or anything along those line.  He probably meant some highly respectable ladies who are willing to be bought for four nights (the ninth, tenth, eleventh, and twelfth days of Christmas) and perform for the person's true love.

Or maybe he just wanted to hire the Rockettes.

Either way, let's look at some options.



Strippers.

I had to resort to celebritynetworth.com for some numbers since my Google search history is getting weird enough without constantly searching for personal data of strippers.  According to them, some strippers posted the following earnings on their own blogs:

Stripper A:
Monthly total: $2237
Days worked: 18
Hours worked: 96
Dollars per hour: $23

Stripper B:
Monthly total: $1570
Days Worked: 10
Hours worked: 66
Daily average: $157
Dollars per hour: $24

Stripper C:
Monthly total: $4402
Days worked: 9
Hours worked: 72
Dollars per hour: $61.14

Now something I didn't know before is that a lot of clubs actually charge the stripper for the right to work the floor during a DJ shift.  There's a flat rate, and if you decide to pull a double shift (each shift is 6 hours), you can wind up paying double the rate.  You also have to give the club a percentage of any money you take in.

Now, there is one stripper named Menagerii (parents, don't let your kids have names with two "i"s next to each other, it just leads to trouble) who posted the following picture from a double shift at work one night:

For people who don't want to count it, that's $3,345 earned in one day.

Now, you obviously don't have to spend that much on a stripper, but let's face it, quality costs more.  Which would you rather have wowing your true love in amazement?

This:

Or this:

I'm pretty sure the second one costs more than "Twenty dollars, dinner at Wendy's and cab fare home."

So maybe you don't want to spend that much on a "dancer."  For the record, the only reason why I put the term "dancer" in quotation marks is because of that stupid movie Showgirls where Elizabeth Berkeley insists she's a "dancer."  I fully respect anybody who can do complex moves on a pole (honest, it's respect), but I'm pretty sure you need to have some measurement of standards.

How about a genuine "Lady?"

Well, we've discussed this before, hiring actual royalty is expensive.  And you can't just buy a title and expect to be taken seriously.  So that's probably out.

How about classical dancers?  How much can that run you?

Before she hung up her ballet shoes to teach, one of the most expensive ballet dancers in the world was Nina Ananiashvili.  Having done work at the American Ballet Theatre and the Houston Ballet, she was able to command $30,000 per performance at her height.

However, the most expensive ballerina in the world (as of 2013) is Sylvie Guillem, who brings in $850,000+ per year.   In an interview with Kirsten Bloom, a prima donna (read: lead) ballerina of the Sacramento Ballet she stated they'd typically do over a hundred performances a year.  If you assume it's just a hundred, that's still $8,500 per performance.

Suddenly, hiring strippers suddenly seems more appealing.

Belly dancers?  If you're paying for the costumes, that's between $300 to over a thousand for a good costume, and the rates for the dancers can be a few hundred dollars each depending on what they offer.  Some start low and increase the price if you require things like travel, props, or specific performance notes, others charge three hundred for a twenty minute dance and you'll get what they give you and like it.

Needless to say, I'm still suspicious about how the original price was determined for that master list, but I will freely admit that I had no idea that it would require winning the lottery to hire the best dancers in the world.

(Be thankful it's nine ladies dancing.  Mikhail Baryshnikov is worth $45,000,000)

Tomorrow we'll jump a few days...I've been learning quite a lot about the hazards of raising swans.