Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Continued, Part IV

Had I continued to reside in New York City, New York, ever since 1986, I feel very sure that my daily eavesdropper's report from it all would have included the following additional contributions from New Yorkers:

----"I have mixed feelings about this trend toward financially-desperate New Yorkers charging $1,000 to a Manhattan merchant in exchange for an advertisement tattoo emblazoned on those New Yorkers' arm or neck or face. I question how many New Yorkers are turned on by walking billboard messages of that type."

----"The tattoo mania in New York is getting so perverse and so intense that the other day I attended a wedding at which a tattoo artist was asked to preside over the ceremony in lieu of a priest. The tattoo artist brought his machinery with him right into the church for the wedding, and he emblazoned the message 'Mary and John in Marital Bliss Forever' on the necks of each of the newlyweds in full view of everyone attending the ceremony. I found it disgusting and vulgar to watch, and I felt like vomiting. Right at that point, I was asked if I wanted to sample the wedding cake, so I asked if I could have it to-go style. I didn't want to vomit in front of the other guests."

---"Anyone who lives in New York becomes an expert on the history of parades. Whenever I refer back to each the milestones in my own life here in Manhattan, it was almost always accompanied by a parade. And there was one occasion when I was actually in that parade."

---"One of my biggest surprises as a newcomer to New York is that I haven't found a History of Parades Museum here. New York is more parade-minded than any city I've ever been in. New Yorkers will pounce on any opportunity they get for a ticker-tape parade. I think they enjoy creating artificial snow, it makes them feel a bit like God when they do that."

---"I love the idea of enrolling in a community-college class here on the History of Parades in Manhattan. I would get lots of goose-bumps from seeing all the proof that New Yorkers finish first at everything they pursue. And just think of all the famous faces I'll see in the videotapes our instructor shows us, truly great ones like Babe Ruth and Mayor LaGuardia. But now I must sound like an unbearable New York chauvinist. Well, at least I'm in the right city for that, since no one here will complain about it."

---"New York is the type of city where if a pitcher for the Yankees pitches a no-hitter, you are immediately invited to attend a ticker-tape parade in his honor. No accomplishment gets overlooked here, when it comes to ticker-tape parade opportunities. In fact, I would expect anyone who pitches a one-hitter for the Yankees gets a parade in his honor here. They probably draw the line at two-hitters, unless they're looking for an excuse for another ticker-tape parade."

---"Next time I attend a ticker-tape parade here in Manhattan, I plan to bring binoculars with me. Otherwise, I could miss out on all the action because of all that confetti shower that makes it very difficult to see the faces of the heroes being honored in that parade."

---"These ticker-tape parades in New York with the misty conditions from all that confetti go beautifully with art of the impressionist era in Europe. Isn't it a shame we can't revive one of those great impressionist painters, in order to invite him to New York to put a ticker-tape parade here on canvass!"

---"With all the trend toward commercial ties with China these days, it might be savvy for New York to re-name a street here as China Boulevard. That would definitely curry favor with the Chinese government, which could help my corporation to land more business deals with China."

---"I have never heard any New Yorker complain that he gets too much sleep at nighttime. That is probably the only type of complaint you will never hear in this city."

---"She is so obsessed with sexism that she wants to do a study analyzing what percentage of the persons honored in ticker-tape parades in Manhattan were male, and what percentage were female. Her thesis is that because of gender discrimination, female New Yorkers are less likely to get honored in a ticker-tape parade than male New Yorkers are."

----"Maybe there should be a Mayors' Day ticker-tape parade every year that honors each of the current and former mayors of New York who are alive and not in prison."

---"Can you imagine what it's like to be Mayor of New York and to have your staff ordering you to showcase the Garment District of your city in everything that you wear? If you wear a tie designed in Italy or France, you immediately lose votes from the Garment District crowd."

---"I consider that detective for NYPD to be beyond reproach. He's survived all five of the internal-affairs investigations he's had done on him in the last year. That's what I call integrity."

---"Here I've been eating pretzels from these street vendors for years, and I've never once thought to ask for a whole-wheat pretzel. Do know which street vendors sell whole-wheat pretzels? I need to go the whole-wheat route, since my doctor tells me I have too much white flour in my bloodstream. Come to think of it, do you know which of the street vendors here sell unsalted whole-wheat pretzels? My doctor also tells me I'll get a heart attack if I don't reduce my salt intake."

---"I think everyone who lives in New York turns into a pedestrian-rights activist. You can't live in New York without doing lots of walking, and the people I hate the most here are the owners of shoe companies who put out these fancy dress shoes that destroy your feet when you actually wear those shoes on the sidewalks of New York. I have sometimes suspected that the owners of shoe companies are accepting bribes from podiatrists, since these shoes that destroy the feet are generating lots of business for the podiatriasts of Manhattan."

---"I have divided my life here into 24-hour segments that begin at 8 a.m. one day and end at 7:59 a.m., and 59 seconds, the next day. Each morning when I wake up at 7:59:59 a.m., I have an opportunity to celebrate going through 24 consecutive hours while still remaining alive and well here in New York. That's no mean feat, judging by the many murder stories I read in the New York 'Post' every day. In fact, next week I plan to host an 'I'm Alive and Well Party' to celebrate my amazing success that way here in Manhattan. My only concern is that there are so few New Yorkers I trust enough to let them enter my apartment as party guests and help me celebrate. It would be very ironic, and very tragic, if I invite the wrong person to my 'I'm Alive and Well Party,' only to have the party turn into a flippant newspaper headline in the 'Post' the next day. Can you imagine how that headline would read, something like 'Irony Abounds in the Big Apple: 'Alive and Well Party' Host Fatally Stabbed by Guest'."

---"I think anyone who lives here ends up turning into a scholar of New York history. Myself, I plan to find out what 'La Guardia' translates into. That was the last name of the mayor of New York that most people remember the most fondly. He was a tiny little man, but his bold last name suggested he could protect our entire city against any unwanted intruder. I'm assuming that 'La Guardia' is Italian for 'The Guard' or 'The Guardian'. Quite a heroic image for that tiny little man who was our mayor decades ago, wouldn't you agree?"

---"Do you ever hallucinate here and think you can see Batman flying in the sky to rescue yet another victim of crime here? I think every New Yorker has hallucinations of that type, since all of us are victims of crime and all of us yearn for a Batman here who will save us from villains and the incompetence of NYPD."

---"Whenever I call NYPD for help, I always end up getting the blues. No wonder they used to call that TV series 'NYPD Blues'. The New York City police are so incompetent and so corrupt that they give everyone here a case of the blues whenever we New Yorkers call NYPD for help. It's depressing to live in a city where calling 911 for help is a bit like gambling in Las Vegas: Your chances of success are slim to none."

---"I've been victimized by crime so frequently here in New York that whenever I meet anyone who resembles Batman or Robin, I immediately shower them with generosity and kindness, hoping they will help me nab the latest criminal in my life. Then I suddenly learn that this Batman-lookalike or Robin-lookalike is not even interested in fighting crime. He'll confess to me that he identifies with the bad guys in Hollywood movies. That is all the proof I need that he's with the Mafia and should be removed from my party list ASAP."

---"I attended a support group meeting for victims of stalking the other day, but the meeting room was so full of people that I got intense claustrophobia and left. It seems that everyone in New York is a stalking victim these days!"

---"I have one cell phone for business calls only, and another cell phone for personal calls only. That way, I always know that if my personal cell phone rings in the middle of a high-priority business meeting for me, I completely ignore that caller. My wife hates it when I do that, but this focus on my business life keeps me competitive. Every week I tell my wife that if I weren't competitive like that, I could never afford to pay our monthly rent here in Manhattan. We might have to move to someplace like Buffalo. She would hate living in Buffalo, I tell her, and that seems to shut her up. In fact, I'm grateful for Buffalo since it is the place I cite the most often to my wife as the kind of place where she would not want us to have to move to, even if I have to be 'Mr. Businesslike' all the time in order to keep us here."

---"I think every Anglo New Yorker has days when he wonders what how he would have responded to the situation had he been black here instead of white. Myself, I'm sure that I would have said 'no' to any and all tattoos had I been black. That would have made a nice statement about my having pride in who I am, and in my skin as is, so to speak. Also, I would have used clean language at all times. I would have thanked everyone who said I sounded like 'Uncle Tom', and I would have told them that Uncle Tom is a favorite uncle of mine. Also, I would have said 'no' to cocaine whenever that came up. The tough part is that if you say 'no' to cocaine and the drug dealer who's talking to you gets offended, sometimes they might retaliate against you. So there may be a special etiquette required if you're black here in New York. You have to say 'no' to cocaine without getting the drug dealers here angry with you. This is one of the reasons why I'm grateful to be white in New York. Cocaine dealers know to stay away from me, and I never get invited to any cocaine parties here. Everyone knows I would walk out immediately if I ever saw or sniffed cocaine at a party I'm attending. In fact, many people know I would call NYPD if I ever saw or sniffed cocaine at a party I'm attending in Manhattan. I'm Mr. NARC, and proud of it. As a white man, I get a lot more respect for being a NARC than I would have gotten had I been a black NARC here in New York. It takes a lot more physical courage to be a black NARC than to be a white NARC in New York."

---"It surprises me that none of the rap-music performers that New York is famous for are offered a professorship in sociology at a college here. Many of these rappers are experts on 21st Century American Sociology. Or maybe I should say they are experts on 21st Century American Scatology. Wouldn't that make a fine title for an endowed professorship at CUNY----a 'Professor of Sociologically Scatological American Studies'? It would be the type of professorship in which every other word he utters in his lectures would make his white students blush. It is harder to tell if the black students are blushing, so that's why I say the white students would be the ones who would serve as the litmus test for ultra-obscene speech during classroom lectures."

---"One of my hopes is that some movie-maker here in New York will do a new documentary movie that features a variety of white New Yorkers each describing in detail how they would live their life if they had themselves instead been black and African-American. That type of movie would promote lots of healthy racial dialogue, in a city where we have too many racial fist-fights and not enough inter-racial empathy. One of my favorite lines in this documentary, by the way, will be the moment when a white New Yorker confides before the camera that 'I would probably eat collard greens for the first time ever. I have always been curious about collard greens, but was afraid to try them. The ethnic aura to collard greens was daunting to me as a white New Yorker. I lumped them together with the high-fat black ethnic foods like hog jowls, I believe they're called. I don't know what a jowl is, come to think of it. Is that a cross between the hog's bowels and the hog's jaw? But that would be physiologically impossible, the bowels and the jaw are on opposite ends of the hog's body. It's one of those questions that as a white New Yorker I never had any inclination to ponder. But now that I'm black, I can see very logically that eating collard greens will not give me a heart attack. Dietary experts say that collard greens are very healthy for you---I know I've read that somewhere. I cannot imagine being a black New Yorker without making a comment to someone at some point that I find it awful the way most white New Yorkers overlook the beauty of collard greens. I might even comment to a friend that I plan to host a Collard Greens Party in my home just to encourage everyone who hasn't tried collard greens to sample them and see what they think. The party will feature collard-greens dip, to make it perfectly clear that the entire party is a tribute to collard greens throughout.'"

---"New York is the first city I've ever lived in where I have to constantly apologize to everyone for not being into inter-racial dating. If I point out that I feel I generally am more compatible with and feel more intimate toward other Anglos, the wiseguy I'm talking with shouts that I could face a discrimination lawsuit for talking like that here in New York!"

---"If you're looking for an inter-racial date, New York is definitely the right place for you. The only racial group I haven't dated here are natives of Antarctica, but otherwise I've covered all the continents very thoroughly in my romantic life. Everyone tells me I should relax my policy on bestiality, and find a penguin to date here in order to live it up Antarctica-style. I don't care what they say, though, my own values are firmly against dating penguins, regardless of whether they could add to my continents of the world repertoire."

---"I wish I could find a webpage exclusively containing a list of all of the quietest restaurants of New York where you can actually hear the other person talking to you if you're on a date here. I cannot tell you how many of my dates here in New York have suddenly collapsed on me because I couldn't hear what she was saying. When I keep asking her to repeat herself, she suddenly asks me if I am deaf, and if so, she prefers not to date a 'hearing-impaired type'. I try not to react to that insensitive comment, but then the date ends abruptly in the middle of our fried calamari appetizer. She angrily stands up and loudly says to me that 'Our date today was Very Dysfunctional, and you are definitely not my type!' Then I stand up and shout at her, 'Well, you are not my type, either, since you didn't even thank me for the calamari!', and this infuriates her, so she grabs a piece of calamari and throws it right at my face as she storms out of the restaurant. My only consolation was that the calamari was not hot enough to burn my skin. I felt like shouting at her, 'Don't you want a to-go bag for the calamari? You can always pop it in a microwave and offer it to your next hot date if he gets that far with you! But at the rate you're going, you're never going to eat an entree on any of your dates, since you'll ditch every one of your dates seconds after the appetizer has arrived!' I didn't say any of that to her, though, since I take pride in being a true gentleman. New York doesn't have enough true gentlemen, and I always feel that that class of men in this city has to begin with me, since I don't know who else it would begin with. It's not like I have a list of adult guys in New York whom I would classify as being true gentlemen! I fully admit that the list of New York men who are true gentlemen would be so tiny that it could take months for me to come up with 10 names! But that's no reason for her to throw calamari at my face, as if I were like all the others she had ditched here in New York!"

---"I've had so many New Yorkers approach me and ask me how things are going along 52nd Street these days, and I have to tell them that I never spend any time on 52nd Street, I'm strictly a 43rd Street person myself. Then the lady who approaches me will say 'Excuse me, you must have a twin sister who lives on 52nd Street' and then I'll say, 'Please ask her to say hello to me at any of my 43rd Street hangout spots, maybe we could then arrange to meet sometime at an in-between place like a 47th Street coffeeshop to see if maybe we have a parent in common we don't know about. There are a lot of mothers in New York who give birth to children out of wedlock, and they don't tell their biological offspring about that surprise child whom they secretly put in a foster home. So this is why it wouldn't surprise me if a lady along 52nd Street looks a lot like me. In the old days, if she had been a boy, they would have called her the bastard child. But I don't know what they used to call a girl who was born out of wedlock. To me, it would not have been fair, even in the old days, to call a girl born out of wedlock a bitch. I feel it's insensitive to label anyone as a bastard or a bitch merely because they were born out of wedlock. And who knows, maybe I could invite her to my next family reunion, provided she's prepared for some hostile reactions from relatives of mine who don't think much of those who were born out of wedlock. Personally, I don't feel it's the girl's fault that she was born that way. It's not as if she had any say over which womb she was in during her pre-infancy period."

---"Forgive me if I laugh when you ask me if I have ever been molested here in New York. To me, the question should have been, 'Do you know of anyone here in New York who HASN'T been molested?' My answer to that question is 'No, of course not.' Molestation is so widespread here that I'm surprised there isn't an annual symposium specifically bearing the title, 'Molestation As a Fact of Everyday Life in New York'. In fact, any day now I expect to see NYU establish an endowed 'Professorship in Molestation Studies'. After that professor gets hired, the clever profile on him in 'The New York Times' will emphasize his view that New York City is the perfect location for molestation research projects, since New York is believed to be the Molestation Capital of the entire country, with the possible exception of Newark, New Jersey. 'The prevalence of molestation as a societal phenomenon here in New York will definitely enliven my class lectures at NYU,' the professor might comment to the Times. That same professor might then add that he plans to ask for a show of hands on the first day of his molestation course. Students would be asked to raise their hand if they can recall having ever been molested in New York. Then the professor would ask the students who didn't raise their hands to come to the front of the class, so can denounce them all as liars in front of all the other students."

---"We've all heard the old saying, that New Yorkers tend to be manic-depressive types. Personally, I see it differently. Anyone who lives here on the 27th of each month will experience instense mania, almost to the point of hysteria, as he attempts to make next month's rent. Then after he somehow scrapes together enough money to avoid eviction and homelessness and despair, on the fourth of the following month he might even experience some euphoria. I call it pseudo-ecstasy, since it is too short-lived to qualify as true ecstasy. He might even celebrate his monthly success by treating himself to a nice meal in a five-star restaurant in Manhattan, which has the ironic effect of draining his checking account balance. Then the morning after his celebration from dining out, he wakes up with a hangover and experiences his monthly mini-depression. He is nearly certain at that point that he can't repeat his previous month's achievement of making rent. That mini-depression eventually jars him into frenzied action, as he madly scrambles to find the dough he needs to keep a roof over his head in the Big Apple. That's why I call it a vicious circle, or vicious cycle, and I'm not sure which is the correct term. He never gets out of that vicious cycle unless he wins the state lottery, and the odds on that are 1 in 10 million. If he does win the lottery, he can buy a home of his own on Long Island, which means that the manic-depressive period of his life has finally come to an end. For the rest of his life, he is astonished to discover each month that he is not experiencing hysteria anymore on the 27th of the month. This is what I call a fairy-tale ending here in New York: when a New Yorker finally extricates himself from the vicious cycle that apartment tenants face every month. But there's always the risk that someone will break into your home, since home invasions are very common these days. So owning a home is no guarantee of living happily ever after in this metro area. That's part of the charm of New York life: you can never take anything for granted, since disaster scenarios lurk around every corner."

----"If you want to meet Superman here in New York, the person you should invite to lunch is the Secretary General of the United Nations. He's the closest we have to Commander of the Universe as we know it. He doesn't wear a cape, as Superman does, but it's possible that the United Nations has a special costume they expect him to wear at ceremonial functions. This is purely guessing on my part, though."

---"I don't think of New York in terms of romantic dates. To me, romance is entirely beside the point in this city. New York is all about power dating. You invite to lunch whoever you believe will most advance your career prospects. It's all strictly platonic, no kissing of any type, and you keep your clothes on at all times here, unless you're meeting them in a Japanese restaurant that asks you to take your shoes off before you enter. And if the New Yorker you invite to lunch turns you down, at least they'll admire your chutzpah. New York is the one city in the entire United States where people exhibiting audacity are admired by almost everyone. 'Audacity is mandatory here,' that might as well be the unofficial motto of all New Yorkers."

---"The one place I don't recommend proposing marriage to a lady in New York is the top floor of the Empire State Building. If she is repulsed by the idea of marrying you, she'll feel so dizzy up there that she might even vomit. And that could be very traumatic for you, to get not only a very painful personal rejection but an outpouring of vomit in response to your romantic overture."

---"Whenever I think about the Empire State Building, I think about all the New Yorkers who carry suicide notes with them up to the top floor of that building, only to change their mind after they reach the top floor. Wouldn't that make a nice museum exhibit, in fact, all the New Yorkers who tore up their suicide note that they had brought with them to the top floor of the Empire State Bulding? To me, it would be very poignant to study those pre-suicide notes that were later nullified when the New Yorker found one good reason to live from the top floor. But it would be very difficult to compile all those pre-suicide notes and put them on display in a special exhibit here. How can you collect all those those tiny bits of paper and reconstruct what each of those suicide notes had said? Maybe they could install a special hidden camera that photographs each of the suicide notes that distraught New Yorkers review from the top floor before they tear their note into shreds."

---"I can't decide whether I would have struck out with Joe DiMaggio, had he been alive today and had I invited him to lunch and conversation in some nice Italian restaurant in Manhattan. What do you think? Do you think Joe would have enjoyed my companionship during that meal?"

---"To me, the biggest surprise about New York is that there isn't any restaurant here named 'Chutzpah'. I'm talking about a restaurant where the waiters and waitresses greet you with unmitigated gall and brashness. They make presumptuous and arrogant comments to you throughout your entire meal. When they deliver your meal to your table, they immediately boast to you that everything you are about to eat is the very finest dish of that type in the entire world. And when it's all over you'll receive a bold handwritten note from your waiter, asking you whether you agree with him that he is the very finest and best waiter you have ever encountered in your entire life?"

---"The networking parties here in New York are fun, because the first thing your hostess will say to you is, 'Hi, I'm Joan, and what do you have to offer me in the way of professional contacts?' That sets the tone for the entire party, and guests are expected to try something similar. The sheer audacity of networking parties is so very, very New York. For instance, a lot of New Yorkers will habitually approach each of the other guests at networking parties and ask them, 'So tell me, which CEOs are personal friends of yours?' Another favorite question to pose to other guests at networking parties in Manhattan is: 'Pretend I'm Donald Trump, and I'd like to make a deal with you. You tell me the most powerful CEO you can list as a contact of yours, and then I'll tell you the most powerful CEO I list as a contact of mine.'"

---"You're raising an interesting point. How many stories does a tall building in New York have to have before it gets classified as a skyscraper? It sounds like your 8-year-old son is asking good questions that you don't have the answer for. Maybe we should collaborate on a new factual guidebook entitled, 'Answers to the 1,000 Most Frequently Asked Questions about New York City.' I'm sure your son would love you for it."

---"The closest thing I've ever had to a born-again experience was the day when I swam five laps in a YMCA here in Manhattan and felt elated. Then I suddenly remembered that YMCA has a Christian heritage, so I felt like thanking Christ for my success in the pool that day. But I don't think of Jesus Christ as a swimming coach. In fact, I'm not sure that he ever swam. He reportedly WAlKED on water, but he never actually SWAM on water, from what I can recall of what my Christian friends have told me. Can you imagine how funny that would be, if I tried to walk on the water here at the YMCA?"

---"I've developed a secret code for communicating with my friends at cocktail parties here in Manhattan. The minute I suspect that a single guy I just met has organized crime ties, I rush up to my female friend and whisper into her ear, 'That one's OC.' The secret code works, since no one else in the entire party knows that 'OC' signifies 'organized crime'. And my friend is spared from dating a Mafia thug, since I warned her in advance about that one."

--"I love the idea of eating vegetable soup when I dine out here in New York, but have you ever actually eaten vegetable soup? Do you know how unbearably bland vegetable soup can be? Maybe there should be a Vegetable Soup Cook-Off here that challenges the greatest chefs and greatest amateur chefs of New York to come up with a vegetable soup that's actually interesting to eat. Or perhaps I should say dreat, since you're half-drinking your soup and your half-eating it. The word I just coined, 'dreat', combines the words 'drink' and 'eat' in a very clever way, I feel. Do you like that proposed new word for Webster's dictionary, 'Dreat', to be used exclusively in the context of consuming an item that is part-beverage and part-food item? I like that word for what I do with soup so much better, since I always find it so awkward to say that I'm eating my soup. Do you feel the same as I do on that, or do you think I'm just being a linguistic snob?"

---"One of my friends has a habit of saying that she is 'slurping' her soup. But to me, that sounds vulgar. Here in New York, we take pride in being more refined than places like Cincinnati. You can slurp your soup in Ohio, but not here. Here, you savor your soup; and I'm not sure exactly what else you can do with your soup inside a five-star restaurant here. Whatever you do with your soup, it must be elegant or you might as well be banished to Buffalo."

---"When you say that she's a snob, what exactly do you mean? Is she a language snob, a gourmet-foods snob, a high-fashion snob, an etiquette snob, or a fine-arts snob? Personally,I always find that the gourmet-foods snobs here are less likely to be offensive than the etiquette snobs are. It's impossible to live in New York without committing at least five 'faux pas' gaffes of your own each day. And if you associate with an etiquette snob, she'll be devoting several hours per day to telling you all about each and every one of your most recent five faux pas blunders that she's identified. It's a bit like being raked over the coals on a 24-hour-a-day basis when you associate with an etiquette snob."

---"It's a given of life here that you're meeting snobs all the time in New York. What makes New York so interesting is the great variety of snobs you meet. For instance, just yesterday I met a Whole-wheat Gourmet Pizzas snob who refuses to enter any restaurant that fails to offer whole-wheat gourmet pizzas on its menu. That eliminates a lot of dining-out options for him. But he insists he has found his calling in life. He says he plans to write a book on the Gourmet Whole-Wheat Pizzas Scene in the near future. I didn't want to be a snob myself, so I told him, 'It seems that you've found your niche here in New York. That's very impressive.' I feel a bit insincere for having said that, but I always try to encourage other New Yorkers when they cite a creative project idea that actually sounds legal. Half the time here in New York, you're hearing about creative project ideas that are flagrantly illegal---so much so that it's only a matter of time before the FBI does a sting operation on that guy."

----"My rule of thumb is to never refer to anyone in New York as a snob. Instead, say that the New Yorker you've just met has strong opinions and has a strong sense of having lots of expertise in that topic area. You will feel a lot better about the rest of this city if you merely note to yourself that New York is full of people who have strong opinions and a strong sense of having personal expertise in that topic area."

----"To me, etiquette in New York demands a constant and year-round devotion to the art of euphemistic language. If you encounter a beggar panhandling for money at Times Square, you never refer to him as being a homeless person or a bum. You instead comment politely to a friend that he appears to be 'in between homes' and he 'appears to be searching for the right fashion statement he can offer the world at Times Square.' As a New Yorker, I always feel much more elegant and cultured when I describe the world around me in sugar-coated language."

---"I would estimate that 90 percent of the New Yorkers who come across as cocky or cocksure are actually lacking in self-confidence. True self-confidence is sorely lacking here."

---"Lately my friend Paul has turned into an Artisan Breads snob. If he enters a bakery and does not see any bread on display that's labeled as an Artisan Bread, he immediately demands to speak with the manager about that shocking oversight. When I asked Paul to please define Artisan Breads for me, he told me I was being very rude to ask. Furthermore, he said, how could I have lived in New York for 10 years without being able to offer a detailed reply to that very basic question?"

---"As a New Yorker, I have banished the word 'flunkie' from my vocabulary. If I started to refer to other New Yorkers as flunkies, I think I would develop a nasty habit of labeling every store clerk I meet that way. And then they might retaliate by short-changing me!"

---"One of my biggest surprises as a newcomer to New York is that I never found a five-star restaurant here named 'Gotham' or 'Gotham City'. At the very least, I expected to find a fancy restaurant here named 'Batman' or 'Caped Crusader' or 'Robin'. It seems that that this city refuses to embrace its Gotham City heritage, even though the vast majority of Americans think of Manhattan whenever they watch a 'Batman' movie."

---"My friend Ted is so obsessed with terrorists that in his personal life he refuses to associate with anyone who owns a cell phone. My friend claims that the terrorists and outlaws of New York all own and use cell phones as their preferred method of communication. Personally, I feel that Ted is being simplistic. I told Ted he shouldn't punish the law-abiding New Yorkers who happen to own cell phones. Ted is profiling all of New York's cell-phone owners in a very unfair way, and that's like character assassination. After all, I assume that our mayor owns and uses a cell phone, but he's definitely not a terrorist type. And he's no friend of the Mafia, either. So Ted is really being very discriminatory and capricious when he arbitrarily excludes Mayor Bloomberg from Ted's prospective friends list."

---"My friend Sally got this wild idea that she could camp out at Central Park in a tent in order to commune with nature. So I told her that if she puts up a tent at Central Park and tries to camp there overnight, all she'd be communing with at Central Park would be criminal types. Then a full hour after the criminal types had raped her and stolen her watch and cell phone and fled from her tent, an NYPD officer would arrive on the scene to announce to her that she was under arrest. The NYPD officer would bluntly inform Sally that she had the right to remain silent, and that she was being charged with having failed to obtain the City's prior permission when she attempted to camp overnight at Central Park."

---"Whenever I visit Washington Square here in New York, I wish I could enter a time tunnel in order to spare George Washington from the pain of wearing wooden teeth in the late 18th Century. I think evey dentist here has fantasies like that, we all would like to help put an end to the suffering that so many of the truly great dentally unfortunate Americans have experienced in our country's history."

---"My theory is that the restaurants on Long Island like to offer asparagus as a menu option because they're proud of the long narrow shape of their island and they want to celebrate it through the vegetables they offer."

---"My 8-year-old son told me that he had expected the pizza being served in Long Island restaurants to be long and rectangular in shape, like the island itself. I explained to my son that the restaurant owners of Long Island are not legally required by the State of New York to replicate the outline of the geography of their island through their menu offerings."

---"I cannot imagine dining in a restaurant on Long Island without ordering a seafood dish. To me, anytime you travel to Long Island you should be thinking fish, shrimp, crabs, oysters, and the like."

---"There may well be a need for a study to determine whether the residents of Long Island eat more seafood per capita than the residents of New York City do, and if so, how much more seafood do Long Islanders eat, when compared with New Yorkers. That might make a fascinating research project for Long Island University."

---"My friend Paula claims that body heat is the biggest untapped source of energy here in New York. She claims that whenever it snows here, the throngs of pedestrians here serve as human snow plows that melt the snow very quickly and efficiently. I told Paula she's being naive. Her theory only applies to snow removal on sidewalks or on designated cross walks, since that's where the pedestrians are found. I also pointed out that there isn't much human body heat impacting the snow when pedestrians walk on the sidewalks here, since it's mostly just boots or shoes that are having contact with the snow. Paula looked deflated by my reply, as if I had just denied her a Genius Grant from the McArthur Foundation. I felt bad for her. It was as if she had just been caught in a blizzard of logic that defied her current lifestyle as a New Yorker."

---"Paula claims that the body heat generated by thousands of New York pedestrians brushing up against one another on the sidewalks of New York is a very progressive source of energy, since it's renewable and very green. No fossil fuels being consumed, she points out. To me, Paula is very naive about what's going on on the sidewalks here. The primary 'green' I observe on the sidewalks of New York is the shameless greed of New Yorkers rubbing up against me. They are all hoping to get their grubby hands on my beautiful and elegant purse. They see my lovely outfit, they see my dazzling purse, and they immediately think Green, as in $100 dollar bills and Greed Gone Berzerk. This is what so much of New York life is all about: Greed Gone Berzerk! I don't blame them for envying me, in fact I take pride in being one of the 100 most envied ladies in all of New York! This reminds me that I wonder why I haven't seen my name in a list of that type in the 'New York Post'. Maybe I should call my friend at 'the Post' and ask her to write a column listing the 100 most envied ladies of New York, and I'm sure my friend will remember to put my name in bold-face type for the sake of good PR."

---"I find it odd how little I hear in New York about fresh-water lakes that are nice places to escape to on weekends. Maybe I should take a survey of my coworkers to find out which fresh-water lake they recommend that's within a 100-mile radius of New York. Then I'd have to consult my fashion consultant to find out whether my salt-water bathing suit and salt-water bath towel would be just as successful for me in a fresh-water lake context. It seems likely that fresh-water lake fashionwear would differ somewhat from salt-water fashionwear. But I haven't discussed that issue with my fashion consultant yet."

---"Maybe we should trade notes on how much money you spend every year on the fashion consultant you meet with here to review possible additions to your wardrobe. My own rule of thumb that I don't want to spend more than 10 times more per year on consulting services from my individual fashion consultant than I spend on buying fashionwear that I actually wear on my body here in New York. Wouldn't it be illogical, for a New Yorker to spend 20 times more on fashion-consultant services in their personal life than they spend on actually buying new fashionwear---or do you think I'm being unfair, to talk this way? There's a lot to be said for devoting a lot of thought to the fashion statement you plan to make before you actually wear that outfit in public for the first time here in New York."

---"My 8-year-old son, Peter, told me that for his birthday this year he wants to go island-hopping with me. He wants to start out at Staten Island, then jump to Long Island for more fun, then head for Coney Island for the main event. I told Peter that I'm very impressed by the creativity of his birthday party idea, but I would have to hire an island-hopping tour guide to make the party a success. And that could cost thousands of dollars that I'd rather spend on Peter's college education someday. So I asked Peter if he would settle for Coney Island this year, then we could hop to Staten Island for next year's birthday party. Then a year later, we could celebrate Peter's birthday on Long Island."

---"My 10-year-old son, Eric, asked me if I could tell him the first name of the man named 'Long' who discovered Long Island. I told Eric that I don't know the answer to that question, since I don't recall reading about a famous man named Long from our state's history. I also told Eric that he should do research on that question and write a new reference book. His reference book could be entitiled, 'Answers to the 1,000 Questions that are Uppermost on Eric's Mind, but That No One Else in New York has the Answer To.'"

---"When I recently told my 12-year-old son, Paul, that the greatest governor in New York's history was Franklin Delano Roosevelt, he replied by asking me, 'So who was the second-greatest governor in our state's history?' Paul loves to stump me with difficult questions that make me feel stupid. I was completely unable to answer his follow-up question, so I told Paul that he should do a Google search using the phrase, 'second greatest governor in New York State's history' as his key words."

---"What I hate about going to bakeries here is that I never get to request a Baker's Dozen of anything. I love the idea of ordering a Baker's Dozen, but I live alone and I certainly don't want to get 12 times fatter for having visited that bakery. Maybe I could throw a Baker's Dozen Party once per month, and invite 11 of my friends to attend that party. Everyone would get to eat one baked-good item from that gourmet bakery at the party. What's nice about a party like that is that it won't go on forever. As soon as they're through eating their one allotted croissant or bagel, they would lose interest in staying at the party. They would come up with an excuse for leaving, such as that they had forgotten about an appointment they had for later that day. It would be a mini-party, which makes sense since I live in a mini-condo unit. In fact, I'm proud of the fact that my condo unit is the smallest of anyone I know here in Manhattan. I'm wondering, in fact, if 12 people could fit into my condo unit in order to hold a party."

---"I've heard so much about pederasts preying on 8-year-old boys here in New York, that when an older man commented to me in church last Sunday that my son is 'well-groomed', I nearly went hysterical. I told the older man that 'no one is grooming my son for anything, and I make double sure my son gets to bed every night by 9 p.m. with full electronic surveillance throughout our home at all times.' I then added, for good measure, that 'I never permit any male person age 10 or older to be alone with my son for more than 60 consecutive seconds.'"

---"I feel that the parent-teacher organization for my kid's school should sponsor a Pederasty-Prevention Educational Documentary film for all of the elementary-school students at my kid's school. That film should feature interviews with a variety of boys and girls who have been sexually molested, and it would emphasize the severe harm to themselves and their families from the child-molesters."

---"I keep a diary that's exclusively focused on Enjoyable In-Person Conversations I've had with other New Yorkers during my leisuretime. So far for the year 2012, I've got one total entry in that very special diary of mine. But I do savor that one conversation from my personal life that I enjoyed this year. Maybe if I invite that person to lunch or dinner next week, I will get to add a second entry to my Enjoyable Conversations in New York Diary for 2012."

---"I'm planning to sponsor a 'Great Conversations of New Yorkers Film Festival', with 'My Dinner With Andre' from the 1980s among the featured films. That movie was shot in Manhattan, so it will make a perfect movie for that film festival here. What I'm hoping to instill in my fellow New Yorkers through this film festival is a devotion to philosophical depth and idealistic zeal in our leisuretime conversations. Doesn't that sound great for New York?"

---"One of the educational workshops I want to sponsor here in New York is a crime-prevention workshop entitled, 'What To Do If You Sense that a Friend or Acquaintance or Coworker or Associate of Yours May Possibly Have Ties to the Mafia'. To me, this is one of the most important educational workshop themes that we could possibly sponsor here in New York, since New Yorkers get so little guidance on this. And it's obvious that the less you associate with individuals who have Mafia ties, the safer and happier and healthier your own life will be."

----"So which of the first-rate Italian restaurants of New York is least likely to attract Mafia thugs? I guess what I'm looking for here is a high-quality Italian restaurant that has the courage to post a warning sign in its lobby that boldly states, 'We Reserve the Right to Throw You Out of this Restaurant At Any Time and Not Serve You if We Ever Suspect that You Might Possibly Have Ties to the Mafia'. I'd also like to see a sign in the lobby of that restaurant that declares, 'One Percent of all Net Profits from Our Restaurant are Donated to the 10 Leading and reputable Non-Profit Groups that Seek to Deter Mafia Activities, including the Institute for the Study of Organized Crime that's based at Indiana University in Bloomington'."

---"I don't blame the Italian-Americans of New York for complaining about ethnic profiling. My only response to their concern is to pose a question to them: 'So tell me,' I want to ask those Italian-Americans, 'what percentage of our city's Italian-Americans do, in fact, have ties to the Mafia?'"

---"One of the documentary films about New York Life that I feel would be particularly poignant would be a series of interviews with the parents and spouses and children of illicit-drug dealers from a variety of racial and ethnic backgrounds. I feel very sure that type of documentary movie would earn lots of praise from the handful of movie critics here who aren't drug addicts. As for the other movie critics, I hope they would be decent enough to admit in writing that they cannot review that movie, since they have a conflict of interest. They might even mention in that confessional column that they are so hopelessly addicted to marijuana or cocaine, that they are incapable of writing reasonably about the pervasive injuriousness to others from illicit drug dealers."

----"You mean to tell me you have lived here in New York for 50 years, but you don't know which tree in New York City is the tallest? Forgive me if if I sound shocked by your ignorance about your own city. I guess I just assumed that everyone knew as much as I do on this subject. Maybe I should compile a new reference book entitled, '1,000 Facts about New York City that Anyone Who Lives Here or Visits Here or Wonders About New York City Should Know.'"

---"When I get a lot of clicking on my phone line here, how do I know for sure that it's because a foreign government is spying on me? Couldn't it just be that my phone is in need of repair, so I need to call AT&T and ask for a repairman?"

---"Personally, I would divide this city into those who truly believe in healthy mutual-consent platonic personal relationships and those who don't. The cynical New Yorkers are the ones I try to steer clear of. If you send them a thank-you card, they immediately tell a friend of theirs that you are trying to get into bed with them."

---"I always find Washington Square here to be a big mystery. What exactly happened on this site, from a historical standpoint? Did George Washington do something famous at this site, and if so, why is it that no one here ever mentions exactly what he did at this very location?"

---"Why is it that I have never heard of any famous person crossing the Hudson River, when everyone knows that George Washington crossed the Delaware River, for instance. When you hear the name 'George Washington', in fact, you immediately think to yourself, 'He was famous for crossing the Delaware River.' So who was famous for crossing the Hudson, and why does nobody ever talk about that famous moment in New York City history?"

---"I think every New Yorker who works in a skyscraper secretly yearns for parachuting lessons during their leisuretime. That's assuming they could find a parachuting instructor who doesn't charge more than $100 an hour. If I worked in a skyscraper, I'd want to keep a parachute near my desk at all times. I'd also find someone to teach me how to parachute successfully from my office building, in the event of an emergency evacuation. It just now occurs to me, though, that I would probably want that parachuting instructor to teach me without ever having me take a mid-air leap during my lessons. If I had an accident while taking instructions on how to parachute, that would defeat the whole purpose of learning that skill. Why take a flying leap myself unless an actual life-threatening crisis is facing me at that very moment?"

---"Do you find that the percentage of New Yorkers you observe on the subway cars whom you attempt to undress in your imagination decreases or increases as you get older? I raise that question primarily because I sense that it might make an interesting topic for a sociological study about long-term trends in societal customs here."

---"Probably about 95 percent of all New York City residents would flunk a pop quiz about upsate New York. When you mention 'upstate' to a New York City resident, their facial expression turns into a sneer and they then they reply with visceral anger in their voice: 'It's up yours, fellow, if you think I'm going to talk with you about Upstate! That's the last place in the world I'd ever want to think about!"

---"The only Rochester I ever heard about was the famous servant of Jack Benny, that Jewish comedian. But I don't know for a fact that Jack Benny's African-American male servant named Rochester ever visited his namesake city in upstate New York. Probably it gave him a bit of an ego trip to mail a postcard to a friend of his from Rochester, New York, that cited his own name as 'Rochester.' So who was the individual who lent his name to Rochester, New York, if it wasn't the famous African-American servant of Jack Benny? But it just now occurs to me that Rochester, New York, was probably founded long before Jack Benny's servant Rochester became famous for having that name. And I hope you can't tell that I'm high on weed right now. I fully confess that the city of Rochester, New York, has never inspired me enough to read its encyclopedia entry in the Encyclopedia Americana. I don't blame Rochester, New York, for that. But it is, after all, a srictly upstate sort of place. My own attention is directed downstate, to this hub of the universe metro area we call New York."

---"When I say 'New York', I'm never thinking upstate. I'm always thinking New York City and its suburbs. This focus simplies everything for me. Call me callous if you like, but the upstate people are inconsequential. They are like the final names that flash before your eyes at the end of a movie you just watched in the theater. You tend to banish those final names to oblivion. They had a role in it, but that role was to tiny and minor that you almost wonder why their name was even mentioned."

---"The upstate people are there, so they are not here. The people who are here are the people who matter."

----"Personally, I always find it ironic that Washington Square was named after a man who was famous for his honesty. Do you ever see anyone at Washington Square who looks like they could pass a lie-detector test, much less a drug test?"

---"I'm hoping the Census Bureau will administer a lie-detector test to New York City residents in the next official census here. That would then tell me whether the percentage of New Yorkers who are liars is 90 percent, as I have suspected for years, or only 80 percent, as my friend Harry claims. To me, the 80 percent estimate is flagrantly incorrect. It implies that 2 of every 10 New Yorkers you meet are honest, and that's a huge overstatement, based on what I've seen and heard."

---"I just came up with a great title for my autobiography. It will be 'Down and Out in Downstate New York.' I don't want my autobiography to gloss over the enormous human suffering I've endured on a daily basis here in Manhattan. I want my autobiography to tell the entire world in excruciating detail how miserably I subsisted here for decades. It may sound self-pitying for me to go into all that detail on the subject, but I think the more enlightened readers will thank me for my detailed devotion to profound realism."

---"I dread meeting New Yorkers who live in the boroughs. The first thing they ask me is, 'Do you know anyone who can help me escape from the Bronx and relocate in Manhattan ASAP?' I always reply that I don't know anyone who can perform miracles for them."

---"My theory is that people who get showered on with acid rain, as we New Yorkers do, reflect that in their sense of humor. It tends to be scathing and nasty to the point of acid. That's why I refer to it all as 'Acid Rain Humor'. There's obviously a biological basis for that all-too-prevalent cynical style of humor here in New York. The taxi drivers are the leading exponent of acid-rain humor, and I find that a bit perplexing since they are in their cars all day so they aren't subjected to acid rain all that much. Maybe they inhale the acid-rain fumes into their lungs merely by driving their taxi cabs around Manhattan."

---"Personally, I feel they should relocate the state capital building to New York City. If New York was good enough to serve as our nation's capital back in the 18th Century, then New York is also good enough to be our state's capital city. I just don't feel that Albany was a good choice for state capital. And it's so far up there that most people from the City aren't willing to travel to Albany to meet with state officials. So Albany is arbitraily denied much of the great brainpower that this City has to offer. It's like a great braintrust here in Manhattan that Albany desperately needs, but never has access to."

---"Personally, I tend to think of upstaters as slackers. If they had half the work ethic and drive that we people in Manhttan have, our state's problems would all get solved in a matter of days."

---"Personally, I think the name 'Buffalo' was a poor name for a town. When I think of Buffalo, I think of endangered species at risk of extinction. Would you want to live in a city at risk of extinction, a bit like that famous case of the ancient Roman town Pompeii that went extinct in a matter of minutes after that awful volcanic eruption there? I guess the only thing Buffalo has going for it is that there's no volcano nearby."

---"I always feel bad when I visit a bookstore here and I notice that the upstate New York section of that book store is either non-existent or so tiny that it's almost impossible to find. I might as well be searching for factual books about Micronesia, that's how obscure the subject tends to be here. Personally, I always keep in mind that every time I enjoy dining out hee in the City, I should be thanking those upstate farmers for the fine crops they produced that made it all possible."

----"Maybe we should offer an 'Upstate New Yorker of the Year' award right here in Manhattan. The upstater who wins that contest would get a free pass to each of the live-theater productions on Broadway for an entire year. This would promote greater cultural dialogue between Upstate New York and the City."

---"Maybe there should be an Upstate New York website that exclusively offers impressive facts about that region of our state. This would help to persaude some of us cynical big-city types to make one annual trip per year outside of our metro area and still inside our state boundaries."

---"Maybe we could promote more appreciation for upstate New York if our New York City zoo had a buffalo on exhibit. If we have one, I'm not aware of it. A live buffalo on exhibit would give me the subliminal reminder I need to travel up to Buffalo and discover that it has charms to it that I had not previously been aware of. I like the fact that Buffalo has a subway system, which is more than most cities can say."

---"It would be interesting to find out if there is an American Indian community in Buffalo. Historically, as you know, the buffalo was a favorite wildgame animal among our American Indians. They probably even had a special prayer they chanted to thank their Indian God every time they prepared to eat buffalo meat for dinner. But I don't know for a fact that if you travel to Buffalo, any of the fine-dining restaurants there would offer Buffalo Steak as an option. And it's very unlikely that any of those restaurants serving Buffalo meat would routinely provide you with a copy of a favorite Indian prayer thanking God for the bufffalo meat on the plate."

---"It's very simple. New York State is divided into under-achievers and over-achievers. We have no in-between group in this state. The under-achievers tend to live in the upstate region, since they're not being held to as high a standard of job performance up there and they figure they'll get away with it. The over-achievers are found in Manhattan. The only disadvantage to that is that over-achievers are so driven they either get a heart attack or they give other people a heart attack from being so demanding."

---"Our state has two classes of people: those who love New York City and those who despise New York City. Myself, I fall into either either of those two groups, depending on my mood that day. Some days I love this City with a passion; other days, I hate this City with a passion. At least I'm never apathetic about the City; and that's another tribute to New York City, that it never elicits a bored response or a yawn from anyone. New York City either enchants or it alienates, never in-between."

---"I think what Upstate New York needs is an Upstate New York Chamber of Commmerce and Visitors Bureau that maintains a well-publicized office right here in Manhattan. That would help to persuade people here in the City to include Upstate New York in our travel plans. And the New York City residents traveling upstate will serve as fine ambassadors for our City, too, since they'll spread the word among upstaters about great places here to visit and buy things. I love the symbiosis of it all: We scratch their backs, through that Manhattan office space we offer to the Upstaters, then they scratch our backs by visiting our City more often and puring more money into New York's economy."

---"I get tired of all this talk about the cultural inferiority of upstate New York. Instead of criticizing upstaters, why not donate lots of money to establish a special new live-performance theater here named 'Upstate'. I'm talking about a theater that exclusively performs and promotes plays written or directed by residents of the upstate region of New York. If we showcase Upstate New Yorkers at their best, maybe then we'd dislike them a lot less. We might even make friends with some of those upstaters."

---"A lot of New Yorkers think of their wedding in terms of making a big splash at Niagara Falls. What they forget, though, is that when their quickie marriage abruptly ends in divorce, they'll also be making a big splash in the news media from the alienation that the estranged spouse verbalizes to reporters. And that's not the type of big splash you want to have. It's much better to spend two years of getting to know someone really well under fully open and straightforward circumstances involving mutual criminal-background checks, for instance. Then, if you still decide to marry each other, the marriage might actually last."

---"If I lived in Buffalo, I think I would develop a hobby of collecting as many Buffalo nickels as I could find. It would be a way of declaring to myself and everyone else that I am proud to live in a city named after a species that almost went extinct. In fact, as a coin collector in Buffalo, I would help organize an annual Buffalo Nickels Coin Show that would showcase my upstate town at its very finest."

---"It's really quite remarkable that an entire pro football team in upstate New York is named after a dubious character from the Wild West. The Buffalo Bills through their team name are apparently exalting Wild Bill and I forget his last name. I fail to see how a 19th Century man who was probably trigger-happy drunkard should be the cited mascot for that NFL team from Buffalo. Maybe if they changed their name, it would boost their team's morale and they would win more games."

---"As a resident of The City, I don't like being reminded by an NFL football team that I'm heavily in debt. To me, whenever I hear that team from Bufffalo being mentioned in news broadcasts, all I can think about are all the oustanding bills I have accrued from dozens of creditors. I find that very demoralizing! It almost makes me want to flee to Australia and ask for a grand tour of the biggest museum there that honors the debtors' prison inmates who settled Australia."

---"When I first learned about White Plains, New York, I was very excited by that city's potential as a site for a great new national park. Something a bit like the Great Sand Dunes National Park in Colorado, which I happened to visit during a trip of mine to Vail, Colorado, several years ago. But if you actually visit White Plains, New York, you don't find yourself convinced that this is the site for a new national park."

---"When I first learned about White Plains, I assumed it had been settled by white people fleeing from New York City. To those panicky white people, a city devoted to the theme of whiteness no doubt had lots of appeal. Lately, though, I've been reading factual accounts about the history of White Plains that prompt me to wonder if there might be some other explanation for that city's name. It's entirely possible that there was no racial motive behind the naming of that town."

---"As little time as I spend in Upstate New York, I would appreciate a new and factually reliable website bearing the title, 'Best of Upstate New York, By Category.' I could then quickly glance through that consumer's guide website to identify which of the upstate cities or towns or hamlets would be worthy of a special trip."

---"I find it ironic that a vegetarian restaurant in tiny Ithaca has somehow acquired more fame and glory than any of the vegetarian restaurants of New York City! I own the 'Moosewood Cookbook' from that Ithaca eatery, but I don't own any cookbook from any of the veggie restaurants here in the City. Isn't that a classic example of David slewing Goliath, assuming that the vegetarian restaurants in Ithaca and New York City are engaged in mortal combat pitting Ithaca against the all-mighty New York City."

---"I find it very sad that while France is famous for having donated the Statue of Liberty to New York City as a gift, New York City has not donated any great statue to Paris, France, as a form of reciprocation. So why in God's name hasn't our City of New York attempted to right this historical injustice? Shouldn't there be an official contest here to invite design plans from New Yorkers for a new statue that expresses our great admiration for the people of Paris and France?"

---"I developed a habit of dining inside French restaurants here in Manhattan to boost my French-speaking skills. But after six months of this educational strategy, I am $1,000 poorer for it and my waistline is three inches bigger. And my French vocabulary is still laughably tiny. I partly blame my waiters, since so few of them were natives of France. They admitted to me that they had studied Berlitz tapes for their crash course on the French language. I would have been better off if I had enrolled in a French language course here that was actually taught by a native of France!"