Mouse's Ear Memoirs: Ashley Eldridge

I might be going to hell for this one if there is such a place, but it's just too fun to not post. There's a lot I've been wanting to say about Ashley Eldridge, and most of it is not very nice. It's been festering these past three years or so. Pardon me. Just assume I am a terrible person and continue reading if you want some BBQ, because it's time for a roast.

Most strip clubs don't have limits on the number of dancers who can work each night. It benefits the club to provide a wide variety of selections for the customers. Dancers who must compete with one another are more likely to be less strict with their boundaries, invest more time in trying to get a particular customer to spend money, and be more desperate. It never benefits the dancers when clubs saturate their market with as much competition as possible. The fact of the matter is, some people are just too ugly to become strippers, but they become strippers anyway.

Ashley Eldridge loved pleasing Stupid Bitch Alex Cave. She'd please Alex by giving away significant portions of her pittance as “tips,” and sweetly talking to Alex every time she did so. Ashley was always very complicit in her own exploitation. Ashley Eldridge is not an educated person in terms of worker rights. She is not a rebellious person. She'd get upset if she overheard me bringing up our rights in relative to tipping Alex. Sometimes when Ashley overheard Alex express discontent about not being able to bully me into more extortion, Ashley would comfort Alex. Ashley Eldridge is a Grade A, Bona Fide Scab if there ever was one.

Ashley Eldridge is from Maynardville, Tennessee. Her stage name is Trinity. Maynardville is about an hour's drive outside of Knoxville. While in Tennessee, I spent some of my time in the neighboring rural town of Tazewell. Tazewell is a short drive from Maynardville, and it's everything one would expect in rural East Tennessee. There was even a donut shop in Tazewell called MAGA donuts, named after the presidential acronym. I used to purchase non-dairy Thai tea at MAGA donuts. I had to drive through Maynardville when I left Tazewell on my way to Knoxville. Like most of the people from this area, Ashley Eldridge is a loser who proudly flies The Loser Flag. Below is a Loser Flag photo that I found on her facebook.

Ashley Eldridge is proud to be descended from losers who lost The War of Northern Aggression. She thinks it's an integral part of her heritage. As mentioned in previous posts, I am maternally descended from Tennessee losers, but I don't fly Ashley's Loser Flag. I cannot imagine fighting a war to make sure I kept my right to have all of those Africans in my living spaces. The South lost the war because of distinct tactical errors and stupidity. Similarly, Loser Ashley sucks at hustling because of distinct tactical errors and stupidity, aside from her ugly face. Ashley Eldridge started dancing at Mouse's Ear in either the late Spring or early Summer of 2019. She never worked in a strip club before, as far as I knew.

Ashley has no rhythm. She is extremely country, wears scrunchies, and is a proud Walmart shopper. She married young and had two kids with her husband. She has that kind of edgy streak that rural conservatives display when they think they are cool by listening to Nickleback and getting piercings. In the dressing room, she proudly discussed her children's obsession with guns and their desires to join the United States military. Ashley is not very interesting or intriguing. She was not assertive or sensual when speaking with the customers. It is likely her husband was the only man she had ever been with. While hustling, she was unable to read random men and then morph into whatever character was needed to make them spend money. For all of these reasons and more, most customers had no interest in her whatsoever. But, a minority of customers did spend money on her, and that was enough to keep her going. It blew my mind that she continued to come to work many nights per week to make a pittance. She tried so hard. She's not very curvy, but twerked her ass on stage like she was in a T-Pain music video. It always makes me sad when I see my fellow svelte white women in doggy style dance positions, twerking their backsides for the steatopygia fetishes that they see in popular culture. Over time, most other dancers extended their kind sympathies to Ashley. She sweetly tried so hard in mostly fruitless efforts. It's always easier to give sympathy to coworkers who aren't competition. Ashley was nobody's competition, so a lot of people were nice to her. I recognized her for what she had the potential to become-- a Crybully who coasts by on peer sympathy.

Khaleesi appeared to be as stunned by Trinity's weirdness as I was, but Khaleesi's friends discouraged her from expressing any kind of comedic commentary. I kept my mouth shut about Trinity as well. I never discussed Trinity with Khaleesi, just quietly observed Khaleesi's reactions. I always wished Khaleesi's friends would've sicced her on Trinity before getting fired. Trinity would sit with customers for hours, clogging the money flow like a dressing room drain full of poopy baby wipes. It was frustrating to navigate around. It was much worse than the normally frustrating etiquette practice that the other dancers had when they sat sipping juice and left their cups on the table.

Ashley would sit for absurd stretches of time with a customer, doing nothing. There were instances where I watched, waited for her to get up, and she wouldn't get up. She'd just sit with an awkward smile, making no money. Sometimes she wouldn't even talk to them, but stare off into the distance with her uncomfortable grin, sitting right beside them. There were instances where I quickly approached the customer if she got up temporarily. I'd sell a dance while she was temporarily away. I was sometimes shunned by coworkers for that afterwards, particularly when Taylor Renae Miller was around to encourage everyone to dislike me. There were instances where customers expressed interest in me, I got called to stage, Ashley sat down with them to waste time while I was on stage, I needed to make money, and I quickly pulled them away to do a dance right after I got off stage. When working among dancers like Ashley, a good hustler must understand that she is nothing more than an obstacle to be worked around, an inanimate turd to avoid stepping on. Don't feel sorry for her. She shouldn't be working there. She has no right to waste your resources, but she will sit there wasting your resources and victimize herself when you make use of the resources that you need to live.

One person who didn't put up with the Trinity Pity Bullshit was Aspen. As much as I despise Justine Marie Cox, I loved seeing Trinity get Ass Bombed. It happened with regularity. Trinity would be sitting with a customer wasting time, and then Aspen would plop her fat ass down to interrupt, conquer, and sell. Trinity would look off into the distance with the same awkward smile, alone at the table, as Aspen whisked away the customer who Trinity had been sitting with. Aspen never experienced as much shunning and stigma for her actions as I did though, probably because Aspen is fat and ugly.

After Trinity had been working at Mouse's Ear for a month or so, she bragged about purchasing Jim Beam Honey in Maynardville, partying it up by drinking Jim Beam out of the bottle, walking around her home in her stripper heels, celebrating her new stripper life with her husband, Brandon Eldridge. There is a sweetness to a new stripper doing such things, certainly a sweetness to a rural gal from Maynardville doing such things, but it's also utterly cringe. Her husband Brandon Eldridge is also cringe. Brandon Eldridge is part of an Outlaw Support Group. He's not an actual Outlaw-- just the support. I cannot imagine being so dorky and impressed with a biker gang that I would dedicate my time to being a support mechanism in some weird fantasy that I am a tough hip guy for doing so.

I never heard of The Outlaws until moving to East Tennessee in 2019. There is a man in the hollers who claims to be in the Witness Protection Program, for snitching on Taco Bowman in a way that sent Taco to prison. Some individuals who I socialized with in the hollers were this man's neighbor, and they knew exactly who Taco Bowman was, because previous generations of their own kin were Outlaws. These individuals never told The Outlaws about their neighbor in Witness Protection, because even though the neighbor is an asshole, they don't like The Outlaws, or care to help supporters of Taco Bowman. From 2019 onward, I came to understand that The Outlaws are a loser group of ugly males with motorcycles, who have a misconception that they are groovy in a masculine way. They think they are important guys. They are from certain unwashed cannon fodder strains of Caucasoids, they are almost always low-IQ, and they gather in groups to engage in risky, low-reward criminal activities. They hold a lot of misogynist sentiments. Outlaws often strut around wearing flamboyant, intricately decorated outfits to let everyone know who they are. Outlaws exclusively pick ugly, degenerate pleb women as their wives and girlfriends. Outlaws are concentrated in the Midwest and Southeastern parts of the United States, but they're all over the country. Not every man can become an Outlaw, and that's where Ashley's husband Brandon Eldridge found his place-- as Outlaw Support.

In addition to waving the Loser Flag and supporting The Outlaws, Mr. and Mrs. Eldridge are also proud Odinists. They wear Heathen jewelry in some of their facebook photos, such as their Thor's Hammer necklaces. Ashley is very proud of her Viking heritage, which historically pre-dates the Loser Flag heritage. I have some Viking heritage too. Ashley and I have a lot in common, genetically speaking. One day, she came to work sporting some type of hairdo that was supposed to be traditional Viking braids, but it looked more like cornrows. I showed an ex of mine a photo of her, and he succinctly put it;

“That girl looks like the worst of the British Isles, rolled up into 53 other European countries, shat out through the lens of poverty.”

I was always entertained by what kinds of customers Brandon Eldridge's wife had to resort to dancing for, after the decent ones were taken. The more experienced, skilled, and physically attractive hustlers at Mouse's Ear sifted through to the higher spending, easier-to-handle customers. This often left Brandon Eldridge's wife with whatever leftovers were around, after everyone else profiled and picked through. This often meant Brandon Eldridge's wife danced for demographics of men who were on the lower end of the income bracket, demographics who came from adverse backgrounds, demographics who were more difficult to manage and shake down for money. I won't get into demographic specifics, but I will say that I enjoyed watching Brandon Eldridge's wife get stuck with all the demographics that I wanted nothing to do with. I know that the Eldridge family was struggling financially in 2019, and it's fun for me to think about all of the exotic demographics of men who peered into Brandon's wife's genitalia up close. Brandon presents himself as a proud, masculine Viking male with his family, home, hearth, blood, and soil. Sometimes, I sit around thinking about Brandon's fondness for The Loser Flag and Outlaw support, and I giggle when considering the customers who his wife had to dance for to make ends meet, when Brandon was unable to support his family by himself.

At some point, Taylor Renae Miller took Ashley under her wing. I can see why she would do that. Ashley posed no threat to Taylor's income. It would benefit Taylor Renae Miller to encourage a pitifully ugly and demure dancer to stay. It benefits Taylor's bank account and ego to do things like that. When Taylor didn't think I was around to hear her speaking with Trinity, she frequently brought up my age in a negative way, as though I shouldn't have been there because I was thirty-three years old and better at sales. Trinity was in her late twenties when she started working at Mouse's Ear, so the age gap between us wasn't significant. Regardless of the meager few years, Taylor Renae Miller used it against me. I don't feel bad about being a stripper in my thirties whatsoever. I have very limited wrinkles and grey hairs, and even if I did, I'd still be pretty. Most dancers in their thirties make more money than they did in their twenties, because they have refined their hustle, cut the bullshit, and use their time wisely. In the misogynist entertainment industry, women are considered curdled by their late twenties. My customers never had a problem with my age, but my age is often weaponized by losers in the industry, be them scabs who want me gone, or owners and managers who think bringing up my age will make me feel sad. I've definitely age shamed homely old scab ladies on this blog too-- people like Melanie Christiance, Seraphina Richman, and Diamond of Teazers. I should've clarified that their weird fake orange tans, old lady fried hair, and overall grossness is what is specifically troublesome and ugly. Stumpy Dumpy Taylor's age shaming toward me was a completely different situation. After Taylor began mentoring Trinity, Trinity started to interrupt my hustling from time to time, in attempts to steal customers from me. Her attempts never worked, because her face is so hideous that no man would ever be tempted to prefer her.

As noted in a previous entry, Taylor operated under the delusion that I was “scared to death” of her. At some point, she came up with a theory that if she stayed by Trinity's side at all times, I'd have a difficult time selling dances to customers in their vicinity. Taylor confidently vocalized this theory.

While at Mouse's Ear, I never had any qualms about speaking with customers who were sitting at my stage when I was the one dancing on stage. That is the norm at almost every strip club across America. Trinity always creeped me out when she sat up there with the customers while I was on stage. I tried to block it out as much as possible, but I had to make money, and sometimes she was sitting at the stage with a customer whose money I wanted. One time, Taylor Miller sat next to Trinity while she was with a customer at my stage. Taylor said to her,

“I'll stay with you here, because she won't come back over here if I'm here.”

Taylor acted like she was being a guardian angel for Trinity, sitting with her at my stage while I was dancing. So, I made an extra effort to stay right there, and talk to the customer who these two bitches were trying to guard. I made very intense eye contact with him, in a way that caused him to dismiss both Trinity and Taylor. I liked going in for the kill. He enthusiastically said,

“Your eyes are HYPNOTIZING.”

I asked him if he wanted a couch dance after my stage set was over. He agreed, and I got off stage for a sale. I continued to talk to him during the dance and convinced him to get five more songs, which was hilarious and lucrative. Male approval shouldn't matter, but I just liked the sport of it, and making sure that Ugly Trinity and Dumpy Taylor knew their place after trying to fuck with my money. Trinity and Taylor were sitting there staring at us, expecting him to return to them after the first song he bought from me ended. He emptied his entire wallet for me after the sixth song, then left. Taylor and Trinity were still sitting at the empty stage as they watched him exit the building. He didn't even say goodbye to them. Later on in the dressing room when Trinity didn't think I could hear her, she was ranting to the other hags about me. She stated that I “would not let” the customer get up from the couch during those six songs. She stated that he got up and left because of me. All of those statements were shockingly untrue and absurd. That customer liked talking to me the entire time he was there. He was a professional bug exterminator who has been on the second floor of Elvis's house in Graceland, to deal with an insect infestation. Infiltrating the second floor of Graceland is an interest of mine, so I was fascinated to hear about it. He enjoyed giving me all of the money in his wallet, even though I made no physical contact with his disgusting body, all because I have beautiful eyes, I am fun to talk to, and I am not a dumpy tattooed chain smoking single mom, nor am I a Loser Flag waving homely hick from Maynardville. He left the building because he completely ran out of money, not because he was bothered by me or forced to do anything.

In subsequent shifts, after the incident with the bug exterminator, Trinity began ranting about “karma” within earshot of me. She has an inaccurate, hodge-podge understanding of Eastern philosophy and the concept of karma. Taylor never educated her on Respecting The Hustle. Trinity was sick of being poor. Her home's air conditioner was broken for part of the Summer in 2019, and she was working many days per week to support her family. I'm not sure what was going on with Brandon Eldridge that caused his homely wife to need to spend all of those nights in the strip club like that. Trinity began posting memes about karma on her facebook during this time frame. I guess when you're a pathetic loser with nothing going for you, waving the Stars and Bars, the only light in the darkness is the hope that your enemies will suffer some time in the distant future because of things they did that you didn't like.

One day, Ashley was swearing profusely about a customer who she had spent significant time with, who gave her no money. She screeched near my ear,

“I'll make 'im pay for SIX couches next time!”

Trinity's leech-like behavior with her dancer friends was interesting to watch. Taylor and the others encouraged Trinity to harvest a tough outer shell, in order to get by socially. By the time Beautiful Bunny started working at Mouse's Ear, Trinity had already developed her workplace bitch behavior at Taylor's instructions. Multiple times, I sat back and watched random customers turn down Trinity after she sat with them for long stretches of time. These same customers would take one look at Bunny and purchase couch dances from her right away, because Bunny is so striking to look at. It gave me great joy to watch all of that. Trinity always looked so confused and betrayed by it, as though she had no idea how unsightly she is or how beautiful Bunny is. One time, Trinity sat with a guy at the stage for over an hour. He gave her no money during that entire time, I later learned. When Bunny got on stage, he tipped her a twenty dollar bill right away. Trinity went upstairs to rant about it in the dressing room with her hag homies. She began bullying Bunny, just like other dancers who bullied high earning newer dancers. It blew my mind to watch the evolution of Trinity from Ugly Demure Scruncie Newcomer, to Ugly Jaded Dressing Room Hag, in only a few short months.

One tactic of psychological warfare that enemies use on me is imitation. Many of my readers are well aware of this tactic. People will copy or imitate me in an attempt to drive me crazy. There came a point late into my employment at Mouse's Ear that Ashley began styling her hair in ways that my hair was styled. She'd apply a bunch of mousse to make it look wavy like mine, then sit next to me when she normally wouldn't, to ensure that I saw her hair. If my hair was up, she would put it up right away. If I took mine down, she would take hers down right away. However, Ugly Ashley's imitation never worked for her financially.

One time I was feeling generous and tried to get in Ashley's good graces. I did this by encouraging my customer to tip her on stage while I was with him. Instead of thanking me for my extended olive branch, Ashley decided to be a cunt about that, by snobbishly walking up to my customer, saying “THAAAANK YOU,” and sneering at me as though she thought she had one over me, when in fact I was the one who instructed my customer to give her that money.

After the temporary time that LaNae quit, a new dancer started working there. Trinity was feeling sassy in terms of longevity. She began speaking like a jaded stripper who has stacked decades of work, and stated,

“I'm gone for a day, LaNae quits, and a new girl starts!”

Trinity is a bisexual. She used to brag about her sexual orientation in the workplace all the time, as though she thought it made her unique or special in some way. She'd sit blankly with customers, staring at other dancers give table dances, and then break into monologues about how she enjoyed looking at female genitalia. She acted as though it was a selling point that would encourage customers to want her. Brandon Eldridge allows her to court lesbians and have extramarital sexual relations with them while he watches. I'm not sure if he engages in three-ways with them. Ashley's extramarital affairs with other ugly hillbilly females was always a bragging point for her. A morbidly obese swinger couple used to come into Mouse's Ear and not spend money. They'd just sit there and talk about being swingers for several hours, once or twice per month for date night. Ashley befriended them, and they were her go-to table whenever she was feeling down about having a particularly shitty night. I'm not sure what this couple did for money during the work week, but they were offended that I spent my work time hustling, rather than sitting with them for free like Ashley did. They were oblivious to the economic and political dynamics of Mouse's Ear. It seemed as though all they understood was Trinity No Make Money, Wendy Bad, Wendy Make Money.

One time I had a conversation with Lilith and Trinity about my Tennessee heritage. Despite Lilith and Trinity's fixation with being Vikings and an overreaching pride in being Southern, they told me that I was not Southern, firmly expressed that I am an outsider, and do not recognize me as one of their own. Southerners like Ashley and Lilith are very insecure and snobby like that, while also being poor and disgusting. Lilith, Trinity and I discussed the use of the term “yunz” and “yunzinz” versus “y'all” in their geographic area, and other such cultural particulars. That was an interesting conversation.

The most intriguing thing about Trinity is that she was still working at Mouse's Ear the last time I checked a few months ago. Her longevity is impressive, and another shining example of how a dancer usually survives in a workplace by being submissive, letting the staff extort her, and gathering with other dumb ugly bitches of similar low-calibur. It's why a lot of more attractive dancers frequently travel to work, even if they aren't litigious like me-- because the townie pleb locals will eventually try to destroy the gems for standing out, succeeding, or being different in an interesting way. Only the demure and ugly ones survive long term in any one place, generally speaking.

Anyway, that's just a bit about Trinity. She and Brandon are separated now, according to their facebook statuses. I was sad to see that, even as it's fun to make fun of them on here. Hopefully they work things out and remain a relic of old world rural Tennessee, square and stubborn and ridiculous and precious. I long for a permanent home, roots, Southern social acceptance, and job security. Ashley is rich in ways I am not.

TL;DR: Loser Flag waving ugly scab hillbilly bitch who can't hustle and doesn't care about labor rights maintains her job for years by coasting by on peer sympathy and the likes of Taylor Renae Miller, tips Stupid Bitch Alex Cave in complicit acts of her own exploitation, shames me for standing up for my labor rights and hustling in a businesslike manner, considers me a total yankee despite our shared ancient history spanning from Dixieland to the Viking age.