Just when you thought it was safe to be a cheerful girl gamer… potential booth babes attack from all sides! Okay, so maybe that’s not everybody’s worst nightmare (It’s not mine either; in the worst nightmare I ever had, I had to stab my brother to death with a fork. Eek!), but it’s still pretty damn unsettling. You go online, you write some things about the negative effects of parading around E3 in a bikini, and you rest easy at night thinking the issue is somewhere else, far away in LA where women are made of recycled plastic. Sure, guys across the country drool over booth babes, but how many of us actually know one? Most women, I assumed, had more sense.
Apparently not. Soon will come the day for you too when you find out that everybody you know and love is freaking insane.
My cousin, for example, it turns out - so my uncle tells me over dinner, trying not to seem disapproving - works weekends as one of those hotties who hands out beer-related merchandise at high-testosterone sporting events: car races, football games, etc. I say slowly, “So you mean she’s a… booth babe?” Sure she’s cute, but she fancies herself pretty badass. She quit a job waiting tables after three days, but this she’s kept up for months. Supposedly it pays well, but I don’t know. One of the few things I can think of worse than posing with thousands of sweaty guys is posing with thousands of sweaty guys who like sports.
And then, at dinner the other night, one of my friends mentions that her father wanted her and her sister to come look cute as his booth for a business conference. Doesn’t anyone else think it’s weird to be your own father’s booth babes? That conversation sparks rounds of “I wish I was a booth babe,” and stories about how working as a scantily clad waitress at a strip club makes you feel really special. Of course, after that the conversation degenerated into how jealous everyone else was of their anorexic friends, and why couldn’t they have willpower like that? Really frightening stuff. Don’t get me wrong, these are NOT dumb girls. Sometimes I wonder if there’s any hope… Standing up for women is well and good, but, just like men, they can be downright strange.
