Would a prostitute wear city shorts and peeptoes?

Yes, I was in 4-inch heels and black eyeliner - very thinly applied black liner - at 8:40am.

Yes, I was crouched in half, leaning into an open car window.

Yes, the only individual in this car - a 50-something suit - was a man with whom, up until the moment he pulled up and motioned me over to his passenger window, I was not at all acquainted.

And yes, after about 30 seconds of polite conversation, I did accept four crisp one dollar bills and let out a light oh-you! laugh at his very audible, very Texan-drawled, "Thanks darlin'. And I shouldn't say this for a lot of reasons, but you've got the best legs I've seen in a good long while."

On the outset, I can understand why, as I turned around to reclaim my perch on the curb at the Burberry-side ConnAve/M St. intersection, I had no fewer than four pairs of female eyes shooting me not just judgmental looks but pitying judgmental looks -- looks that said, "I disapprove of your life choices, but sweetheart, you are too good and wearing too expensive a pair of pressed city shorts to be working for that Palfrey woman."

And not only was there a very clear, very palpable them-against-me dynamic, but the six permutations of paired eye-locks and head-nods between the women - a poly-blend burgundy skirtsuit with square-toed block-heeled pilgrim booties, a pavement-sweeping Amish dress with pseudo-Keds, a too-tight black sleeveless shift with stubbly, deodorant-caked underarms, and a stroller-pusher with a multicolored-jacked-up-mess-of-a-denim-romper - also implied there was a strengthening network of solidarity developing among them as well.

The them-against-me dynamic quickly degenerated into one of them-very-against-me.

Needless to say, the three men caught in the epicenter of our unspoken woman-war felt more than slightly uncomfortable and decided to divide their focus between the bursting cracks in the sidewalk and the god-awful resort wear in the store windows behind them until traffic cleared. None of them waited for the white "WALK" sign -- they wanted to bail and bail five seconds ago.

I considered whipping my long ponytail around and confronting the Before-Picture-Squad, informing them that my conversation with the silver fox consisted of two benign questions and two equally bengin answers - "Do they really check parking meters around here?" "Yes." "Do you have change for some ones?" "Yes." - but then I thought, nuh-uh, they're not worth the effort.

Instead, I wanded on a thick stripe of Dior Addict lip lacquer in 'Tulle' and indulged in a little over-the-shoulder smirk, the kind a $4 whore might shoot at a group of women who couldn't even get a nickel for their wares.