Dear Neighbor,

or as I have come to think of you, Hot Cop.

Dear Hot Young Officer:

I am really glad you live across the hall, though sometimes annoyed that you score one of the really good right outside the door parking spaces, and then leave your car there for all the days you are off. Though you are hogging a really choice parking space, no big city veteran can really bitch about that cop car right outside the door.

I know you work bad hours. I know this because we only see each other in the really bad hours. This is nowhere near as embarrassing for you as it is for me. Like, today.

I'm out there at 5:45 a.m. I gave myself a brief, despairing glance in the mirror, at my Medusa hair and eye bags, before throwing a hoodie over my pajamas and slamming my feet into flip-flops to take the dogs out to pee. This was, I must note, before my own first pee, let alone my first life-sustaining cup of coffee, because that's how it is here.

And the dogs did pee, and I was hustling them back to our door, and oh crap there you were, looking all crisp and fresh coming in off your shift, looking like you were just leaving for work to protect us all from, um, whatever is crime here, or fresh from a photo shoot for a public servants calendar.

And I am standing there in flip-flops and Medusa hair, no makeup and Sarah Palin's old glasses, and I was reminded that 1) I am old enough to be your mother; and 2) it still pisses me off that you only see me in my most disheveled and pre-coffee state. Not that I'd actually hit on you, or even want you to hit on me, but just, damn, I hate to give young men such scary mental pictures of what their wives will be like in 30 years.

Sincerely,

Your neighbor with the little dogs.