It's not only me that does the wrong thing

A while back I was booked to do cabaret for a wedding party in a posh part of the south.
I warned them that I was an adult act, unsuitable for the under 18's. Oh that's fine. That's what we want. Oh, one other thing, can you do It's Raining Men in your act? Yeah, no problem.
When I turned up it was to find I was working in a very upmarket venue, a farm that had been converted into a wedding/party venue, miles form anywhere. They had a beautiful room that could have held 500 with about 200 milling around. I was to perform up on a low mezzanine with a wrought iron barrier around it. All well and good. It was obvious that no-one was going to be paying me or any other performer much attention so I was ready to just run through my act, do some photos, collect my fee and get out of there as fast as possible.
Then I found out exactly why they wanted me to do It's Raining Men; the groom (who was white) and his two best men (both white) were dressing up as The Weather Girls (you will recall that they are both very black) complete with black face. Although there was quite a roar of recognition when I announced them that quickly turned to an almost embarrassed silence.
Even I wouldn't attempt to black up for a number!

The trials of being glamorous

So, most of my costumes are trimmed in feather boas. This is incredibly handy to disguise all sorts of oddness in my body shape.
Of course, on a regular basis they get dirty, especially around the neck line, so I wash them. Yeah, I know, it sounds like the last thing to do but i wrap the costume up in a pillow case and tie it tight to minimise the battering the feathers and sequins get and chuck it in my machine on a cool wash.
Now, no matter how tight I tie the pillow cases a few feathers will always come loose.
Last weekend, it being so very hot, many of my costumes were drenched in sweat after a shows so, with a nice sunny and slightly breezy Sunday looming, I decided to wash several at once.
All was good til I opened the pillow cases and emptied out the costumes. I hung them on my washing line, turned the pillow cases inside out and ended up with a lawn resembling a turkey plucking yard. There were feathers of all sorts of colours everywhere.
What to do?
The logical thing was to hoover them up. So this afternoon, much to the bemusement of the neighbours, I dragged my Henry (pun intended) around the garden on an extension lead for 15 minutes and, voila, the cat is no longer going mad chasing feathers round the garden.

Sometimes you can't do right for doing wrong

A recent booking turned out to be less than satisfactory due to disruptive audience members.
Usually I can handle them by embarrassing them or just abusing them. This night was different.
The first problem was with a pair of women who were sat on one side of the venue on a large round table, alone. I went over to try and integrate them with the rest of the audience with a name check and some gentle banter. As they were two middle aged women of a less than feminine demeanour I asked discretely, for me, if they were 'together'. To which they demurred. Then I noticed one of them had a walking stick so I joked that the strippers would steer clear of her because she wouldn't be able to run after them. Her 'friend' then told me to go away because the other one was upset. I have no idea why.
Next I was told that someone on the next table had complained that I had upset the woman with the walking stick. She didn't know them. What was it to do with her?
The final straw was right at the end when, as it was a charity night, the strippers volunteered to be auctioned off for the winner to give them a body massage. One of the women on the table who wanted to be outraged on behalf of others started to harangue me saying the auction was demeaning to men! What a load of bollocks!
Rather than try and have a conversation and kill the mood stone dead, I just told the DJ to turn the music up.
Honestly, lighten up people! It's supposed to be a fun way to raise money for a good cause.