Not in My Neighborhood

A friend read my post on sex workers in the neighborhood. He said it reminded him of this story:

When I was about 6 or 7, I dropped an ice cream on the sidewalk in my neighbor’s yard. I was really upset that I had lost my ice cream. The neighbor ran out into the yard, as if she had been waiting for a chump kid to come along, and yelled at me to clean it up. She complained that ants and other insects would take over her yard.

So I kicked the ice cream scoop into the street. And plotted my revenge.

Soon after, I took a bag of sugar out to her sidewalk, and lined it with sugar. I had two reasons in mind. First, I could do an experiment to see if she was right. Would ants take over her yard? Second, I could wreak my revenge on her.

Lo and behold, she was right. Ants invaded her yard, covering the sidewalk in black. I only hoped that they would get into her home.

He went on to say that being neighborly to sex workers would have the same effect. Sex workers would be swarming to your street if you did any of those things I suggested. His response was, “Not in my neighborhood.”

Maybe I’m naive. Okay, I’ll own that. But why can’t we do something?