The Unescorted Escorts

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Every private club worth its initiation fee has a rulebook, and every rulebook worth its binding has a policy on unaccompanied guests. The rule exists for obvious reasons - a member's guests are a member's responsibility - and at most clubs it sits quietly in the back pages, rarely invoked, occasionally referenced and almost never the thing that ends a membership.

Almost never.

Nestled among the most exclusive zip codes in Southern California sits a golf club so venerable, so meticulously maintained and so breathtakingly expensive that merely being considered for membership requires a level of social standing most people will never achieve. 

Among its members was one John Johnson - and yes, that is what we are calling him, because the name fits in ways we need not elaborate - a man who had cultivated what could best be described as a fragile relationship with club rules and etiquette. He knew the rulebook. He had signed off on it when he joined. He had simply, over the years, chosen to regard certain passages as more of a suggestion.

Mr. Johnson booked one of the club's newly renovated overnight villas and arrived on a Thursday evening with two guests. Female guests. Guests whose professional arrangement with Mr. Johnson was, depending on your generosity of interpretation, somewhere between a gray area and a fairly vivid one. California has a clear position on the matter. The club's rulebook, technically, does not. What the rulebook does address, in plain language, is this: guests must be accompanied by their host member at all times while on club property.

All times.

We don’t have many details on the events of that evening, though you can let your imagination run wild if you choose. What happens in the overnight villas stays there, and that’s probably for the best. All we know about are the events of the following morning.

For whatever reason, John Johnson decided to leave by himself that morning. Maybe his wife called. Perhaps an important work meeting materialized. The details are unclear and, frankly, beside the point. What is known is that by Friday morning, Mr. Johnson was off the property. His car was captured on security footage exiting the gate at 8:47 a.m.

His guests, meanwhile, had found the grill room.

They had secured a prime table overlooking the course and ordered mimosas, eggs and aspirin. They were also engaged in conversation. Lively conversation. The kind that carries, particularly in a room with good acoustics and a Friday morning crowd that skews heavily toward members' wives enjoying a quiet post-yoga brunch.

The details drifting across the grill room were specific. And lewd.

The wives of three separate members would later describe the experience using variations of the same phrase: I didn't know where to look.

And here is where the club's famous civility became its own problem. Because what do you do? The women had been signed in as guests. They were seated, ordering from the menu and had done nothing that provided clean grounds for removal. To ask them to leave would require an explanation nobody wanted to give. So the staff smiled. The mimosas were refreshed. The eggs arrived. The wives studied their phones with tremendous concentration.

The guests stayed for two hours.

It was the footage that finished Mr. Johnson.

Not the evening - the morning after. Eight forty-seven, his car at the gate. Nine-oh-three, his guests arriving at the grill room. Sixteen minutes and one clean, documented, inarguable violation of the club's guest policy. Unaccompanied guests on property. His name on the tab. His whereabouts confirmed by camera to be nowhere near them.

There were also, the committee noted with the tone of men who had been waiting for an occasion, other items in the file.

The bylaws were clear. The footage was clear. The letter arrived the following Tuesday. John Johnson was no longer a member.

So, dear reader, our advice to you? Know the rules. Follow the rules. And if you're going to make questionable choices on a Thursday night, at minimum see them through to Friday morning.

After all, Pretty Woman was a movie. The Unescorted Escorts is real life. And in real life, they find the grill room.

Poll Question

Last Week's Poll Result

What actually gets people quietly disinvited from things in life?

🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩🟩 Not understanding the environment
🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️⬜️ Trying too hard to impress
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Drinking too much
🟨🟨🟨⬜️⬜️⬜️ Forgetting they’re being evaluated

Predictably, “Not understanding the environment” won by a margin that explains nearly every quiet social extinction any of us have ever witnessed. Effort can be forgiven. Excess can be forgiven. Even bad behavior occasionally survives. But misreading the room is fatal. Think about it: If you don’t know where you are, how will you ever get where you want to be?*

WINNING COMMENT: “I once had two guests show up still drunk from the night before! The thing is they are members at my other club and should have known how to be respectful. Guess what, they were never invited back!”

Don’t forget to catch up on past stories at ccconfidential.vip - and while you’re at it, tell a friend!

*If any of you out there are publishing a book of philosophical quotes, feel free to use that one - just be sure to attribute it to CCC!

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