Myrmecophilous

Myrmecophilous- associated with, or benefited by, ants

Ex: Ever wondered what the actual criteria are for the sanitation letter grades posted in restaurant windows? Here is what you have to do to earn each of the grades, as told to me by a self-proclaimed “trash expert” (homeless vagrant using an empty Frito’s bag as a duvet).

A: Have no visible rats on the premises. Run a restaurant that is generally clean and well-kept. Exceptions are made for Parmesan cheese sprinkles and Nature Valley granola bar crumbs, as scientific testing has proven it impossible to control the unwanted spread of these substances.

B: Be the same as A, except have colorful signs reading “Halal”, “Gyro”, or “Self-Serve Bar” hanging in your shop windows. Sometimes these places are even cleaner than A, but Abdul didn’t get the memo about the sanitation department visit, and was caught applying his natural cardamom deodorant while rotating some goat skewers over the gas grill. I know it’s unfair and almost certainly racist, but did you forget who the city sanitation workers are? What else would you expect from a guinea nicknamed Johnny Bones with a David Tyree helmet catch bicep tattoo and some New Jersey uncles currently in the slammer cutting up garlic with a razor blade.

C: At this point, the ratings all start to blend together. A C might as well be a D, which might as well be an F, because no self-respecting individual is entering this restaurant other than to take an emergency piss in their free-standing steel jail toilet in the dry goods closet. To get a C, you have to be either serving food in seriously gross conditions, or, even worse, be a neighborhood hangout for loud Dominicans.

D: If this were school, and the grades were ordered according to how difficult they are to achieve, then a D would be the equivalent of an A+, that’s how rare of a grade it is to earn. To get a D, you need to tote the extremely fine line between being a filthy pigsty and being utterly unfit to accommodate human visitors, even for a short period of time. If the inspector doesn’t asphyxiate upon entrance to your restaurant, but he later goes on to develop leprosy sores and Microorchidism (a disorder characterized by the severe shrinking of the testicles), congratulations, you are now the proprietor of a D-rated restaurant!

F: Establish your restaurant as a myrmecophilous entity whose food waste and rotting produce provides the caloric mass to fuel a microscopic version of New York City inhabited by 8 million tiny ants. “What is this, a city for ants?” The sanitation inspector asks as he bends down to examine what looks like the Empire State Building carved out of a banana peel. “Is that…Ant-thony Weiner exposing himself to a young ant in a Carmelo Ant-thony jersey?”