When I was in college I shared an apartment with friends. None of us where named Rockefeller so the place wasn’t in the best location. In fact, it was next to an SRO, single room occupancy, a flophouse named the Diplomat.

The sidewalk in front of the Diplomat served as a front porch to nearly every down-and-out drunk, strung out junkie and recently paroled prisoner in Chicago. During the warmer months it was a gauntlet that we all had to pass through in order to get to our front door. The normal routine consisted of requests for money or sexual favors or sometimes both. We all pretty much tuned it out after the first few weeks of living there.

Except Jodi.

One day as all of the other roommates were sitting on the couch Jodi came in and, without saying a word, walked to the kitchen, took a 10 pound canned ham that previous tenants had left in a cupboard, walked back to the front of the apartment, opened the second floor window and threw the canned ham into the crowd below.

Evidently one of the crew had gone past intimidation and propositioning into the realm of touching.

As we all looked down, not only was the crowd gone...

so was the ham.