Looking for a Good Time

I’m back, and just in time to protect the San Fernando Valley from a new menace that threatens to disrupt life as we know it. I am speaking, of course, of the deadly invasion of undercover policewomen along Sepulveda Boulevard.

They are there all this week, using whatever charms a policewoman could possibly possess to trick guys into believing they are prostitutes.

I personally cannot see how that is possible, but on one day alone the lady cops were apparently successful enough to receive cash offers for sexual favors from 19 men who were subsequently arrested for their ill-timed lapse in judgment.

There is nothing like the sudden appearance of handcuffs to take the heat out of sex, unless your preferences run toward bondage, in which case I suppose you would welcome the addition.

I personally have never been arrested for doing business with a hooker, but I imagine it must be one hell of a shock to realize that what she is whispering in your ear is not a promise of erotic delights but a recitation of the Miranda warning.

The whole thing started a year ago when residents of Van Nuys began complaining about a proliferation of prostitutes in the relatively quiet suburban neighborhoods bordering Sepulveda.

This was caused by an earlier crusade in Hollywood that chased most of the sex-selling ladies out of town. Lacking the wit to seek flashier environs, they drifted into Van Nuys.

I probably would have recommended Santa Barbara or maybe Ojai, but since I was never asked, it doesn’t matter.

The Van Nuys residents did nothing for a while about the increased presence of hookers in their neighborhoods, but then with spring came a sudden burst of indignation coupled with demands that the prostitutes ply their trade elsewhere.

It seems the residents were not so much angry over the hookers per se or even over the moral deficiency of a hooker’s trade, but they were damned tired of people rolling around in their periwinkles.

The prostitutes, not among society’s more intellectually gifted tradesmen, were using the front yards of private homes to entertain their customers instead of utilizing one of the motel rooms that rent by the hour.

You can enjoy a variety of illicit activities in the quiet suburban neighborhoods of Los Angeles and get away with it, but start crushing the chrysanthemums or battering the baby blue-eyes and you’ve got bad trouble with the lady in the house.

My wife, for instance, will accept with gentle forbearance the wild extremes of my often shabby behavior without doing me physical harm, but I know as sure as I’m sitting that I’m a dead man if I ever run over her flowering cowslips.

People who live around Sepulveda apparently harbor the same kinds of passions toward their gardens, and in fact organized a civilian prostitute patrol to keep the hookers out of their front yards.

But, when the hooker watch threatened to spill over onto Sepulveda Boulevard itself, the police suggested that perhaps virgin vigilantism was not the way to go, since it is often difficult to tell a hooker from any other new-wave woman.

They both tend toward tight pants and no underwear and both pursue their goals with often unnerving determination. It was time for the pros to participate in the fight against sin on Sepulveda.

Enter undercover policewomen posing as prostitutes.

The City Council approved a $15,000 expenditure to help put the lady cops on the street and to pay them overtime if necessary.

The thrust of the crackdown on prostitution turned abruptly from the prostitute to the potential customer, shifting the emphasis, as it were, from seller to buyer. I ask you: Is this the American Way? Not likely, buster.

The burden of legality, like the burden of quality, ought to rest with the retailer rather than the consumer. The simple act of selling should encompass a guarantee not only of satisfaction, but of protection from prosecution.

That is justification enough for urging today that potential sexual consumers along Sepulveda be wary of the women they solicit.

If, for instance, she wonders if you would be willing to “exit your vehicle” to join her in unmentionable delights and if she refers to you as either a “perpetrator” or as “Vehicle Occupant No. 1,” you know you are dealing not with a whore but with a cop on overtime.

Police officers, either male or female, are emotionally incapable of speaking in simple declarative sentences, beyond the word Freeze! , before they fire and are therefore relatively easy to identify once engaged in conversation.

If, on the other hand, flaming desire tends to cloud crystal perception, it might be best if you simply avoid Sepulveda Boulevard altogether until, as they say, the heat is off, after which you can go back to business as usual under free-market conditions.

Fifteen grand, by today’s inflated standards, won’t last forever.