"Frankenhooker"
I snorted coffee onto my keyboard.
"Who knows how many lives this haunted house actually saved"
Brilliant!
"Always get paid up front. That's the first rule of business, unless you just wanna get fucked."
That's awesome. I think I'll cross-stitch it onto a pillow, or make a nice plaque to hang in my office.
I'm delurking to tell you that I just laughed HYSTERICALLY in my office; to the extent that someone came in to check on me.
I love the idea of hand-job hookers giving business advice to college kids and would-be serial killers. And actually, pretty good advice. Maybe they should have opened their own business school or something.
Is this the experience that made you start drinking?
This is the best ode to Halloween I have ever read. I am going to laugh about this for days.
The best part about that story: I grew up down the street from the Velvet Touch, I know what house you're talking about, and I think I might be able to take a guess at who it was that got the hand job.
"Who knows how many lives this haunted house actually saved."
Hilarious - in an intensely frightening sort of way. I also love that you started this post with "The first time I met a real hooker..." because I've NEVER met a real hooker, and after reading this I feel like I just haven't lived.
When I was in high school, on the way to CMU for a marching band field trip, our bus broke down and eventually died in that parking lot of the Velvet Touch.
Can you imangine anything more exciting to a bus full of hormone-laden band geeks?
No, you can't.
flutes would never again be enough, after that fateful trip.
If Bossy knew there was such a thing as a Haunt Industry it could have saved her quite a lot of time in college.
It's just impossible to find people with good Haunt Experience these days.
One of my friends worked as a cashier at the Velvet Touch. Apparently part of the job was keeping track of the girls as they went out on their "dates" and notifying a manager if a girl didn't come back after a certain amount of time. She said a couple times, girls came back somewhat the worse for wear but they kept working the rest of the night.
I'd like to imagine Julie/Asia as an accountant now, safely tucked away in suburbia with 2.3 kids and a "crossover" vehicle that has a bitchin' sound system. I'd wager it's a far "happier ending" than many of those women got.
Molly Wade Chase, where did you live? My husband grew up in that neighborhood, too. My in-laws had a long-standing vendetta against the velvet touch, grumbling Calvinistically under their breath whenever we'd cruise past it on our way to one of 28th Street's chain restaurant offerings.
I could never remember what the business was actually called, and have at times referred to it as Purple Velvet, The Purple Touch, and Velvet Revolver. 
Business 101:
"Always get paid up front. That's the first rule of business, unless you just wanna get fucked."
Best Halloween story ever.
Man, I love halloween. All haunted houses must be the same... When I was 15 I worked for this haunted house in Colorado, called the "labrynth"... I Never saw a penny of what they owed me.
I Gave myself Phenomonia spending three weeks in a giant freezing tent and helping with special effects. We had a tesla coil in one room, which was really cool.
The best and simplest effect was the "head on a shelf" where with a mirror placed at a 45 degree angle to the shelf below you could stick your head through from the back side and it really looked like a head on a shelf. I would wait, eyes closed, until someone got so close I could feel thier breath on my face. Then I'd open my eyes and start barking, or whatever. Priceless.
The art director was a Transexual named Tracy, as I recall. He/ She made these amazingly spooky "mushroom" gardens for one of the rooms. Bunches and bunches of cast latex "mushrooms" carpeting the floor. It totally blew my suburban white-bread middle class 15 year old mind.
Great Post. Thanks for sharing that.
that's supposed to be pneumonia. sorry.
dude, it scares me how much i get you.
"It didn't seem so crazy that she was a hand job hooker, not when there were girls in the dorm giving away full lube jobs for free." - i nearly wet myself on that one, thanks for the reminiscin'!
much love and peace to you two this week- hang in there.
*cough* write a book *cough*
I love people with a good story arsenal. Yours seems virtually limitless. I don't know how you do it! Amazing, and thanks for another great story.
The Velvet Touch was hiring about 8 months ago at $12/hour for cashiers. The whole absence of windows thing prevented me from applying.
Molly and I have just sleuthed out the fact that there were TWO Velvet Touches, one in K-zoo (which, duh, you're writing about here) and a branch campus in Grand Rapids! Who knew the velvety debauchery had penetrated (heh) the West Michigan market so thoroughly?
the Velvet Touch Empire stretches farther than any of us had imagined. There's a big one that caters to the eighteen-wheeler crowd on I-94 in Parma, a few miles west of Jackson.
Ha! I loved this.
I have yet to meet a "real" hooker (fake ones, however, I've seen a zillion of those...) but I knew a girl who was totally married and putting herself through law school by going down to the local strip club with a wig on and doing a few stripteases. That's about as close as I have ever come. That, and I met a girl when I first moved to Austin who looked like Morgan Fairchild. She was from Kansas City, and she was 16, dating a 24 year old. She would tell me that on a weekend night, she and one of her bruiser pals would go down to the seedy side of town and hang out with the hookers and drug dealers, just to see how the other half lived. I felt like I was reading a racy novel, at 16.
Thanks for the awesome story. You have more wrinkles in you than a shar pei.
I'm still laughing out loud! This is fantastic. I do enjoy your writing so.
I hope the week gets better for you guys.
Great story.
Great story, but mad props for the title. Shaft - HA!
Jana, I am in my office which is a minute away from 28th street right now.
Wow. Just, wow. I was doubled over at "Orgy of Knowledge" (esp. after my husband did a creditable Death Metal Voice), so when I got to Frankenhooker I had to sprint to the bathroom...hoo!
May I suggest you start up a Detroit chapter of Mortified or The Moth or some other storytelling outlet? This one would bring down the house, dude. Quick, before Twoniper arrives (apologies to Laid-Off Dad for that one)... 
Amy: do you work at the Christian Reformed Church in America headquarters?! Please, say it's true. Wait, they're actually on 28th Street...so probably not.
I love your stories and your photos! This and the letter to your wife a few years ago (checking ... two years ago) are some of my favorite posts in the blogosphere.
Thank you for your writing!
Hand job hookers huh? Never quite heard of those before. Love the story and actually had to close my door due to laughing so hard. Have a great weekend!
This story was fantastic! Thanks for sharing.
great storytelling.
god I hope there's a sequel to this. excellent. thanks.
oh dutch, you slay me. (GET IT??) glad you didn't turn into either a serial killer or a hooker.... as far as we know...
holy smokes you're an awesome story teller, had a hilarious first time visiting this blog of yours!
My husband and I used to live across the street from the Velvet Touch on Berkley and it always cracked us up that they shared a parking lot with "The Vac Shack" vacuum store.
The last line. sigh. loved it. Halloween hysterical.
also, sorry for Wood's and your loss.
This comment was meant for Duggars.. Just a Shanghai connection.
Thought of your when I saw this:
http://www.cbc.ca/arts/slideshow...antom_Shanghai/
Signed, your personal virtual librarian
When I read this story it made me think of a story my sister told me about med school. A guy that was in her class was with a doctor and they went into a room. There was a woman in there and when the doctor asked what was wrong instead of talking she pulled her pants down. Apparently she was covered in white flaky stuff and the room smelled. The doctor and the guy left to go do something and when they came back the doctor didn't make the med student guy go back in when they went back. When my sister told me that story we thought it was odd that she waited so long to have it checked out.
I'm so glad I stumbled upon this old post, from just before I started reading you.
The quality of this storytelling is why you're on another plane far above me, and why you should include this in the book you should already be writing.
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