A couple of months ago, a single woman of a good age (30- something) bought the house next door to me. I have only met her a couple of times, but I do know a bit about her from observance of her daily habits, which I see out my kitchen window. Let me tell you about her.

First, she is single. Second, she has one of those irritatingly small dogs with a bow in its hair. It's a blue bow, so does that mean it's a boy dog? [Tangent- if it is a boy dog, I'm sure it's fixed, so does she really need to heap more humiliation on his lack of manhood by putting a BOW in his hair?] Finally, on some weekends, she has an overnight visitor, whom we will call White- Truck Joe, who brings along a black lab.

My neighbor comes home every day at lunch time, from whatever job it is that she has, in order to let her little dog out to go to the bathroom. Though she has a nice, fenced- in backyard, she lets little Toto (my name for the beast) out her FRONT door and walks him over to MY YARD to let him do his business. [In case you are wondering, she doesn't bring along her scooper to clean up after him] On the weekends when White- Truck Joe is visiting, you can guess where Black Lab does his business as well.

To make things worse (i.e., my bitterness more intense), we currently have our house on the market. Consequently, I am constantly grabbing the pooper scooper to patrol the yard, because I don't think prospective home buyers want to know that their prospective new neighbor is that much of a schmoe. When I find poop, I hatefully flick it over into her half of the side yard we share, but since she doesn't do her own yard work, I doubt she has noticed.

What I really wonder about is her motivation. Is she really so stupid that it has never occurred to her that you aren't supposed to let your dog poop in other people's yards (particularly in a nice neighborhood like ours)? Does she want to keep her backyard clean so that she can enjoy it? Does she hate me for some imagined slight? Is it because I didn't bake her cookies when she moved in, like I did for the people who moved in behind me, and she found out? Why???

The saddest part of this whole story is that every time I see that stupid dog, I want to go and yell at my neighbor, but deep down, I am too much of a coward to say a word. So, I guess I'll just keep scooping poop (and writing mean things about her, of course).