I live in a fashionable part of Williamsburg, New York, in a very fashionable building. Before they converted it into artsy lofts it was a pickle factory. All the other residents are young and hip and smart.

Naturally they hate me.

Honestly, it's not my fault. It's just that everybody has a dog, and I don't know anything about dogs. I've never had one, and basically they all look alike to me. I find myself striking up a random conversation with a dog owner, and at some point the inevitable occurs.

I have to guess whether their dog is male or female.

After a few of these instances, I came up with a litmus test. All the nice, quiet dogs are probably male, I decided. All the yappy dogs are probably female. So now when I'm walking in the neighborhood and I pass somebody who lives in my building, I submit their dog to my uncomplicated criteria before the friendly chatter begins.

"He's adorable," I say if the dog seems friendly. "What's his name?"

Now, I'm right probably seventy percent of the time, and it results in pleasant conversation. That other thirty percent of the time, though, somebody wants to hit me with a tire iron.

"It's a SHE," they note petulantly, firing eye daggers at me. "HER name is Bukowski." And then they stomp away like I asked them if they used to be the lead singer for the Shaggs.

I don't know what's wrong with these people. How do they think I'm supposed to know whether little Chomsky is a boy or girl? Obviously there's one unmistakable method, but I can't believe they want me to go there. Really, would people really rather I checked their dog for a vagina than mistakenly call him a her?

"That dog is adorable," I'll offer, and then I'll circle around to the dog's rear end and lower myself to the sidewalk. I'll mentally wrestle with the choices -- Is that an ass or a uterus? dick or oversized clitoris? -- before finally settling on a decision and returning to our conversation. "What kind of dog is she?"

But somehow I know this isn't going to solve the problem. "HE is an Australian sheep dingo," they'll snap at me frostily, "and HE is still sensitive about having HIS balls removed."

If I had any kind of workable memory, this would only happen once. Instead, all the dogs blend together, and I offend over and over again. It'd be positively simple to nip it in the bud. "That's an attractive dog," I could say. "Is it some sort of exotic breed?"

Sparks will fly with my sensitivity. Connections will be made. And at some point I'll have to decide what the owner's gender is, and there's only so far you can go when everyone's got wife beaters, tattoos, and lesbian hair.