I am not a h00ker, but thanks anyway.

That just about sums it up really. I was walking back from bringing the garbage to the bin the other day (the bin is on the boulevard, don't get me started on that...) and as I was walking the half a block back home, a car slowed down jussssssssssst enough to make me wonder what he was looking for - maybe checking the street name? Nope, he seemed to be looking just at me.

Not wanting to accuse this guy of being a john when mayyyyyyyybe he was just lost, I continued up the sidewalk (not the street, the sidewalk - the h00kers usually walk down the road itself) and sure enough he turned down the next back lane and stopped; waiting for me to approach the car. Instead I stood at the sidewalk and shot him a dirty look. He turned around and headed back up the street staring at me the whole time. We reached the corner again at about the same time and he waited for me to approach the car yet again. My response was the same scowl and then he turned, waited just another second in case I was confused and perhaps wanted to offer him some lovin' and then drove away.

Now, although I don't have a picture of myself up here, I'm fairly certain that I, even on my worst day, do not look like a street h00ker. Not really sure what kind of amazing luck this guy thought he was having, but I think he may have watched Pretty Woman a few too many times.*

Now, thankfully, I was very close to home at the time and it was still daylight so I didn't feel particularly threatened, but what if I was a bit younger and a little more vulnerable? What gives that creep the right to think he's allowed to look for sex next to MY house? Or anywhere in my neighbourhood? I wish we had a "red light' district in Winnipeg - we all know that sex for money happens here - why not add an element of safety for the workers to it? If there was one place for this type of activity then there would be no reason whatsoever that just because I, or any other girl or woman, simply walking down the street was a h00ker.

Of course the idea of some sort of designated area for this is far to wild and crazy for Winnipeg, but I really think that it should get a bit more discussion than it does.

On to more lighthearted story...

Last week, the MCC store on Selkirk Ave. that I mentioned in my Spring Cleaning post was mentioned in a slightly more widely read medium - a little rag called the Winnipeg Free Press...

Transit worker Larry Preweda just received a stunning windfall -- pearls, gold and $1,860 -- thanks to some very honest people. "My wife Delann passed away three years ago. I was de-cluttering the house and decided I'd give her books to the Mennonite Central Committee thrift shop. I never even realized there was a Readers Digest book about two-and-a-half inches thick in the box.
"The guys came and took the furniture and books over to the MCC Thrift Store on Selkirk Avenue.
"A few hours later, this lady gives me a call from the store to say she's found some interesting stuff inside a fake Readers Digest book and told me, 'You'd better come here right away!' "
Preweda was shocked to open the lid of the clever book bank and find $1,860 in cash and Delann's gold and pearls.
"I thanked them profusely," said Preweda.
Preweda learned later that the book bank nearly hit the trash heap.
"The MCC lady said she didn't normally deal in Readers Digest books, and they almost chucked it, but they heard something move ---- I guess the pearls -- and so they looked inside and called me immediately," Preweda said.
"It was the first donation of the day, and Betty Neufeld, our book woman, lets out a whoop: 'Look what I found!' " said Gerry Loewen, the floor manager at the MCC shop. They started counting the money.
"We stopped at $1,500 or $1,600," she said with a laugh. "If it had been one of the last pickups of donations, we could have missed it."
Aside from change and a little American cash in a coat sleeve, this is the most money the MCC gang has ever found.
Not only did Preweda receive the money and items, the incident also revived his faith in humanity's honesty.
"It made me feel very good -- a reaffirmation that there's good people out in the world," he said. "I'm going to give them something nice as a sign of my appreciation."
"We were delighted we could do that for him," Loewen said.

Yup. Now that's a feel good story! So remember, next time you've got some gently used things and you want to make sure that if you accidently leave your pot of gold in between the couch cushions that it makes its way back to you, give Gerry a call and she can send the volunteer troops out to pick it up! 204-586-2527 if you are too lazy your internet connection is too slow to go to the other post ;)

*Ok, so I certainly don't look like Julia Roberts either, but I do think that if I ever had to resort to h00king, that I'd be more of a yellow pages sort of girl rather than a hanging out on a side street in the North End.