Wit and Wisdom of New Yorkers, Part VII

Overheard in New York City, New York, had I been there at the time:

---"I try to schedule one Great Cultural Event per month into my appointments notebook. I call them GCE's, for short, it's like a special abbreviation code that everyone in our household uses. If it weren't for GCE's here in Manhattan, what would be the point of living in The City? I might as well be living in Buffalo, for God's sake. That reminds me that I've got to find a fully-up-to-date guidebook to great cultural events here where the admission charge is $20 or less. I can't afford Off-Off-Broadway productions, so I'm hoping for a new Off-Off-Off Broadway that slashes the admission charge on what I would have paid to see an Off-Off Broadway play."

---"My teenage son and I had a big debate about whether it qualifies as a cultural event for our family if we attend a New York Islanders hockey game. Doug says it does qualify, but I say no. Hockey, to be, is the antonym of the word 'culture'. I hate it when I see the hockey players fight in a very mean way in the middle of a game. It gives Doug dangerous ideas on how to resolve conflicts with his schoolmates. Whenever Doug attends a hockey game with me that features a nasty fight on the ice, Doug leaves the hockey arena at the end of the game with his fists pumped and this glazed look on his face. I find that very worrisome, since Doug could turn into a bully at school if he watches too many hockey games."

--"My teenage son Peter has got such a one-track mind that when I asked him if he wanted to attend an Off-Off Broadway performance with me, he replied that he wouldn't want to be sitting next to me while watching the actors and actresses strip naked on stage. I had to explain to Peter that it's not a 'Take It All Off' Broadway, but an 'Off-Off Broadway,' which is quite different. Peter didn't even listen to me, though, and emphasized that he does not want to attend anything featuring nudity while sitting next to his mother. Even watching semi-nudity on the stage while sitting next to his mother would make Peter very uncomfortable, he said."

---"I still don't know what to tell my teenage son Paul when we attend New York Islanders games and he points to a hockey player with missing teeth. 'Mom,' he says, 'that guy has lost some of his teeth and he's obviously rich and successful! Maybe if I lose a tooth myself, that could be a sign that I'll turn into a millionaire soon!'" That is what Paul likes to claim, anyway, and I still don't have a good response on that. Maybe I should call my dentist and ask him what I should say the next time Paul praises muissing teeth as a sign of wealth and fame."

---"I can never persuade my female psychotherapist friend to accompany me on a trip to Coney Island. Paula claims that Coney Island is a very traumatically Freudian experience for her, since the elongated hot dogs being served on Coney Island are far too phallic and too unattractively shaped for her tastes. In fact, I don't know of anyplace I ever suggest to Paula for a joint outing that doesn't trigger the same type of objection from her."

---"I admire my son Eric's creative ambition. Just yesterday, he told me he plans to make a deal with Donald Trump in which my son will submit architectural design plans for an inverted skyscraper that extends 20 floors into the ground here in Manhattan. My son insists that it would save lots of energy if skyscrapers of New York were built underground. So I told Eric that the people working in that underground skyscraper might get very depressed from not seeing enough sunlight during their workdays. They might even go crazy at their underground skyscraper office cubicle, and that could lead to a shooting spree by a deranged employee who shouts at the top of his lungs that he is NOT a mole, and he refuses to live like a mole anymore!"

---"My son Sam is so vindictive that he is keeping an enemies list in his personal computer that exclusively cites the names of each professional athlete and college athlete who ever at any time reportedly injured a favorite football player of Sam's. When I then asked Sam if that means he plans to pursue research to find out which professional or college football players are blameworthy for the trick knee of Joe Namath, the former New York Jets quarterback, Sam thanked me for the idea. I had assumed he could tell I was being facetious. But Sam took my idea to heart, and he rushed to his computer to add the name of Joe Namath to my son's all-time favorite players who did not deserve to have been injured by an opposing player, in Sam's view."

---"Ever since my boss showed me a toy gadget of his at the workplace that takes a snapshot of me and then gives me a projected image of myself 40 years from now, I have noticed lots of new lines on my forehead and around my eyes and lots of pain all over my body that I never had before. I even suspect that my boss has secretly hired some sly Mafia thug to accelerate my aging process in order to demoralize me and get me to resign from my job. I've also considered the theory that my boss plans to fire me for failing to report to him immediately that I've developed an unsightly limp to my gait at the workplace in the last few weeks. It's gotten to be so bad that when I wake up on my orthopedic bed in the morning, I always feel much worse than before I went to bed! It's making a mockery of the money I spent two years ago for a Swedish Tempurpedic-style massage every night during my sleep!"

---"My boss at my 42nd Street office job loves to tell me every day that he used to work for the Mafia in New Jersey, and that during that prior time period his best friend was a Mafia hit man. I sometimes wonder whether my boss is trying to intimidate me."

---"I don't know of anyone here in New York who doesn't have a favorite Mafia story to tell that's drawn from our everyday life. Every New Yorker takes pride in having had at least one brush with death that featured a Mafia thug. The tourists who visit New York thrill to that type of story. I think they especially like the fact that 20 years ago I was in the middle of praising an Italian-restaurant chef for his delicious ravioli when I suddenly heard the sound of gunshots 20 feet from my dining table. Ever since then, I've associated ravioli with the sound of gunshots!"

---"As a New Yorker, I would like to subscribe to an online data-base service that enables me to simply type in the name of new acquaintance to immediately learn whether he has any ties to organized crime. I can handle New Yorkers with ties to disorganized crime. They're no threat to me. It's the organized crime types that scare the daylights out of me!"

---"Personally, one of my own primary complaints against the Mafia here in New York is that they are so lacking in wit. Never once have I ever heard of any quotable famous last words from a Mafia thug here after he got shot by a Mafia hitman from a rival gang. How's that for proof that the caliber of the Italian people has sharply declined in the period since the Roman Empire days? I will always cherish Caesar's famous last words, the 'Et Tu Brute?' line that may have been the finest-ever famous last words to have ever been spoken by an Italian man. Here in 21st Century New York, you will never find any mobster half as clever with the language as Julius Caesar obviously was."

---"New Jersey has gotten so popular on television these days that may be should host an annual 'Jersey Chic' cultural festival here in New York. It would be interesting to find out what the turnout would be for a festival with that theme here in the Big Apple. Maybe if you surveyed the people attending the festival, they'd all admit they were either born in Jersey and were curious for that reason, or they currently live in New Jersey and wanted to find out why New Yorkers don't agree with their own very emphatic view that Jersey is a complete hellhole."

----"To me, the first thing that pops into my head when I hear anyone say 'New Jersey' is an f-word. Not the standard obscene f-word, but the f-word that's spelled f-r-a-u-d. New Jersey, to me, is a complete hoax. They claim to be one beautiful garden there, but that's an outrageous lie. Their governor should get indicted for deceptive advertising on behalf of their state. It's doubly galling when you ask youself who's the most famous horticulturalist or gardener you ever heard of from New Jersey. If Jersey takes so much pride in its gardens, why is it that I have never once heard about any famous horticulturalist or any famous gardener from the Garden State? If they have a garden going on down there, it's obviously very second-rate. And it wouldn't surprise me if they are growing marijuana in their garden down there, as many potheads from New Jersey as I have run into here in New York!"

---"One of my favorite jokes about New Jersey is that all the candidates for governor there should be asked if they have certification as a Master Gardener. And if not, why in the world do they claim to be capable of taking care of the 'Garden State' in the official role as Governor?"

---"My 8-year-old son has a way of stumping me when I least expect it. Here I was dining with him last Saturday inside Four Seasons restaurant, and I happened to mention Staten Island to my son in passing. So my son says, 'Who was Staten?', and all I could think of was some candidate for President decades ago with a name a bit like that, but I'm not completely sure. In fact, I don't remember his first name. Possibly his first name was Harold. I believe he was a third-party candidate, which doomed his campaign from the start. He didn't get elected, anyway. What I need is a special website for parents with an online address such as stumped-by-my-child-again-and-need-fast-answers.com."

---"My 10-year-old son, Teddy, somehow got this wild idea that our entire family could go island hopping for a three-day weekend on the Canary Islands. Teddy claims that it would work out great for a three-day weekend, since we wouldn't have to fly all the way from Kennedy Airport to Europe for that outing, he says. That would save our entire family lots of time and money, Teddy points out. So when I asked Teddy exactly what he expects us to do on the Canary Islands for that three-day weekend, he said he assumes we'll all be bird-watching there, since there must be a lot of wild canaries on those islands that would keep us busy using our binoculars. I told Teddy that I'd make him a counter-offer. How about if I bought him a canary of his very own, so Teddy could spend all of his leisuretime watching his pet canary in its cage. That would be a lot cheaper than taking a plane flight to the Canary Islands. Besides, I don't even know what language the people of the Canary Islands speak. If the natives there speak pigeon English, I don't know how to speak that dialect. I didn't attend Columbia University as preparation for speaking pigeon English with anyone."

---"I wish someone would invent a new type of long underwear that doesn't make you feel hot and miserable when you wear it indoors during the wintertime. That's what I would dread the most about visiting Montreal this month. I would have to wear long underwear everywhere I go in Montreal, and the minute I enter a building there I'd feel like I was being blasted by a blazing-hot furnace. To me, long underwear should insulate you from the cold without making you feel as if you were being tortured and abused by your own undergarments. If I could find a lighter and more flexible long underwear that wouldn't cramp my style inside public buildings in Montreal, I would feel a lot better about visiting Quebec this Holiday Season. I could also smile a lot more often at the Canadians if I had a more comfortable long-underwear to wear in Quebec. We are all eating a lot more food products from Canada these days, so it makes good sense to smile at them."

---"Wouldn't it be fun if our civic group would contact the Duke of York in England and ask him to please bring his youngest child with him on his next trip to New York City, so our civic group could honor his son as the New Duke of York, or the Duke of New York for short. That would be the first-ever Duke of New York I've ever met, so we could get lots of photos of that historic occasion for our civic group."

---"Oh, I never read the 'New York Times' on the subway for the sake of actually reading the 'Times'. I'm reading the 'New York Times' on the subway because I want to increase my chances of being discovered by another passenger as someone they might want to invite to have tea and conversation with them at a local coffeehouse. I don't have enough tea and conversation partners here in New York. Reading the 'Times' on the subway is one strategy I use for conveying my geniality as a prospective coffeehouse conversation partner."

---"One of my favorite opening lines when I ride the subways here is to ask the passenger sitting next to me if they have a favorite columnist from the newspaper they are holding in their hands? If they reply with a 'yes', I ask them if they have ever thought of inviting that columnist to meet them for lunch at a local restaurant? I like that opening line because it flatters the person I'm talking to. It implies that they are a V.I.P., and that all the newspaper columnists of New York would gladly meet them for lunch and conversation."

---"You're always telling me about the most famous people you have met here in New York. So tell me, who's the most obscure and unnoticed and non-famous person you have ever met here? I think I'd like to meet that person. I find it fascinating that they have somehow found a way to lead a very low-key and quietly unassuming lifestyle in a city where loud egomaniacs in quest of fame are all too prevalent."

---"Personally, I feel we should have an 'Honorable New Yorker of the Year Award' that offers a $100,000 prize to the New York City resident who in the most recent 12-month period distinguished themselves the most admirably in their capacity as a conscientious law-abiding person of very fine integrity and honor and creative idealism. I don't read enough about New Yorkers fitting that description, since they tend to go ignored by the news media here."

---"As a parent here, I would love to see a child-friendly public mini-statue honoring George Washington at Washington Square here. It would be the type of statue that a child could stand beside for a photograph profiling that child as a future leader of this entire country. George Washington will always be a favorite president among American schoolchildren. If they can see themselves as being in the same ballpark with George Washington, such as if they are photographed at Washington Square putting their arm around Washington's mini-statue, that could be a huge turning point for them at age 8 or 10."

---"I'm new to New York, and I don't understand the whole concept behind the Goddess of Liberty. I've studied ancient Greek and Roman and Egyptian and Norse religions, and I never read anything about a 'Goddess of Liberty' in any of those ancient religions. In which theology, if any, is there a Goddess of Liberty, and why is it that I've never heard of that religion before?"

----"Personally, I've always wondered how old the French lady was when she posed for the Goddess of Liberty statue that was sculpted by a Frenchman in the 19th Century. Was she in her 30s, 40s, or 50s? There's something very maternal about her that suggests she was in her 30s or 40s. But I may be mistaken."

---"It is not a good idea to crash a party that's being hosted by a foreign embassy here in New York. If you crash a party of that type, they might get you arrested and flown back to their foreign country in order to charge you there with being a 'spy' seeking to steal top-secret information from their country."

---"I've always wondered what the hors d'oeuvres are like at the Albanian Embassy parties. I've never dined in an Albanian restaurant before, so I plan to call the Albanian Embassy to ask if it accepts members of the general public as guests at their Embassy parties. That way, I can add to my 'cuisines of the world' diary my personal reaction to Albanianian cuisine. I plan to use the term 'underrated'in my diary about Albanian foods----unless, of course, I vomit after eating snacks at that party. In that unlikely scenario, I plan to use the term 'justifiably obscure' in my foods of the world diary to describe Albanian cuisine."

---"I'm not a bigness fanatic, but I need to know where in New York I can find the largest homemade pretzels. My cousin is visiting me from Toledo, and he has told me that he's determined to eat the biggest pretzel in all of New York. He wants to get photographed eating that giant pretzel, so that he can then E-mail that photograph to all his relatives back in Ohio."

---"I found it a bit demoralizing to greet my cousin from Georgia here in New York, only to have her immediately ask me which amusement park in New York City do I recommend for her family during their visit? I told her that I am not aware of any amusement park here, since all of New York City is very, very serious and very opposed to having fun."

---"I'm a newcomer to New York, so I need to know where the public indoor garden is hidden inside Madison Square Garden. I don't recall having ever seen any indoor garden or atrium featured on television at that indoor stadium."

--"I think I've figured it out. Madison Square Garden was obviously built at a site that previously was known as Madison Square. The word 'garden' was then tacked onto the name, in order to attract as many tourists as possible."

---"I personally feel that there should be a second Goddess of Liberty statue situated at the city limits of New York City that greets anyone moving to New York City by motor-vehicle or train. I also feel that there should be a third Goddess of Liberty statue greeting everyone who lands at Kennedy Airport by plane. The current system is biased in favor of those arriving here by ship, and arbitrarily denies a full and up-close Goddess of Liberty greeting to anyone who travels to New York by motor vehicle or train or plane. That, to me, smacks of inhospitality toward those three categories of newcomers to New York."

---"I need to find out whether the stock market went down or up on the day when I was born here. It means a lot to me to know that my very first day as a New Yorker was a very good day for Wall Street. As a stock market broker, I like to think that it was my destiny from day one to pursue a lucrative career as a broker."

---"I'd love to find out just how tall the Goddess of Liberty is. She has to be the tallest woman in the entire world, unless you can cite a lady somewhere on this planet who's taller. These days, I'm thinking that the Goddess of Liberty would make a fine pro basketball player, since it would be so easy for her to get the ball into the hoops. But come to think of it, she'd have to throw the basketball down in order to put it into the hoops. That might be a bit tricky for her."

---"You'd think that New York City would be a haven for tall women, since the Goddess of Liberty is so tall that she promotes that theme to everyone here. Our beloved Goddess of Liberty is the patron saint to all of New York's tall single women, I would say. But I've heard so many of the tall women here complain that their height makes it hard for them to land a date. So not every bachelor here is thinking 'tall' when they're searching for a female dating partner. My reply to that is that the tall women should spend more time attending New York Knicks pro basketball games. The single men who attend those games tend to be biased in favor of height, so it gives tall single ladies here a good well-lit site for landing a first date."

---"I'm relieved that we have a Garment District here. I think that makes the right statement about New York City not being a nudist colony."

---"My idea of a fun time here in New York is to go on a skyline-gazing adventure. I plan my itinerary for the night to exclusively feature visits by myself to a series of restaurants and coffeehouses that each offer me the very finest nighttime views of the New York City skyline. Then I travel from one restaurant or coffeehouse to another, ordering something light in each, until I've had enough exhilarating gazes at our skyline that it all feels divinely decadent to the point of exhilarating for me. At that point, I rush home and take a nice hot bath, to soak it all in."

---"There are days when I feel sorry for the other great cities of the world. If New York is the greatest city on the entire planet, then what does that say about London or Madrid or Paris, not to mention Montreal or Rome? Are they greater than most, without being greatest of them all? I almost feel like shedding a tear for each of those not-as-great-as-New-York cities. I guess I take pride in having empathy toward those who are less fortunate than we New Yorkers are. That's always been a strength of mine."

---"I'd love to attend a Puerto Rican Cultural Festival here, but I never seem to find that event on my calendar. I wonder why that is. Maybe the organizers of the annual Puerto Rican Cultural Festival here in New York are very modest, and don't want to toot their own horn. Maybe they're hoping that word of mouth will be all the advance publicity they need. That reminds me. I should find out if we have a New York Puerto Rican Chamber of Commerce, so I could call them to ask which day of the year I should plan to attend their leading cultural event. I'd even make a point of buying a Puerto Rican sombrero, in order to attend that annual cultural event in proper style. But I don't know for a fact that Puerto Ricans call their hats sombreros."

--"Since I suffer from a fear of heights, I need to live in the section of Manhattan where the apartment buildings are the shortest in height. Do you know which part of Manhattan that is?"

---"Whenever I call a cab to ride home, I make a point of giving my taxi driver a home address for myself that is two blocks away from where I actually live. I don't want the taxi driver to know my exact street address, because so many of the taxi drivers here are sexual maniacs. For all I know, many of these taxi drivers are convicted sex offenders who would stop at nothing to break into my apartment unit and attempt to rape me when I'm sleeping in my bolt-locked apartment. The only disadvantage to my strategy is that when I walk the two blocks to my apartment unit from where the taxi driver drops me off, I'm at risk of getting raped during that two-block walk if it's late at night. Here in New York, you are always having to choose which of the potentially-disastrous options available to you are the least likely to be trigger your own demise. I can never be completely sure whether I chose the safest option, but my talking to you now proves that I've survived New York's many pitfalls so far. Maybe someday I'll get to teach a class on that subject for a local community college."

--"So tell me, of the 20 ethnic groups most commonly found in New York City, which ethnic group do YOU think is the most under-represented by the annual cultural festivals here? If I knew the answer to that question, I could turn that into a freelance festival-organizing stint for myself that could earn me a lot of much-needed income. After all, it takes a lot of income every month just to hold onto my apartment here in New York. So I have all the incentive I need to find out which ethnic group feels the most snubbed by the current annual cultural events calendar here in New York!"

---"The only ethnic group I don't hear much about here in New York are the sons and daughters of gypsies from Europe who now call New York their home. I guess those descendents of gypsies are not willing to publicize their ancestry through a New York Gypsy Appreciation Day. Maybe they sense that most New Yorkers would be afraid to attend any cultural event that the gypsy-heritage group would sponsor, since the non-gypsies would be at risk of having their wallet or purse stolen from members of the gypsy-heritage group during that cultural event. You'd think that the New Yorkers who don't have gypsy heritage could just leave their wallet or purse at home when they attend that partciular cultural festival. Then they could stuff some cash in their brazierre or their underwear as they travel to the event, which would work out fine until they are suddenly asked by a guy near a turnstile to each pay him the $20 admission charge in exchange for a ticket to that New York Gypsy Festival."

--"My advice to you is: Beware of any stock market broker here who is fond of astrology. If you ask him for advice on whether to invest or sell on any given day, he'll reply by asking you your birthdate. Then seconds later he will inform you that it is not astrologically recommended for you to invest that day---and 24 hours later, you'll learn that his advice to you was dead wrong. You will feel like an asteroid that has just been smashed into bits by the real world."

---"One of the interesting facts about the Mafia I've learned here is that none of them are ever cremated. Each of the Mafia thugs here insists on garnering a huge Italian-designer cemetery tombstone of his own that refers to his being a great and noble American who died unexpectedly. To me, it's never unexpected when you die after being shot 10 times in the head with bullets. But the Mafia never refer to the fatal gunshots in their tombstones here. In their tombstones, they want everyone to know that it came as a complete surprise to the Italian-American community and the Roman Catholic Church that Joe Ravioli of Manhattan has headed for Heaven much sooner than expected."

---"I recommend standing as close as possible to the back wall of the elevator whenever you ride an elevator here. That gives you a chance to rest your back by leaning against the back wall of the elevator. I can't remember if my orthopedic specialist was the one who came up with that tip for me, or whether I came up with it on my own. Ideally speaking, I've always felt that the back wall of the elevator should be orthopedically designed to make it very comfortable for passengers to lean against that back wall as they ride up a skyscraper here. I love the idea of New Yorkers getting the back massages they urgently need merely by standing as far back as possible inside an elevator."

---"I'm a firm believer in carrying a mini-flashlight with you whenever you ride an elevator here in New York. If the elevator suddenly stops in between floors and the lights go out, you can pull out your flashlight and use it to quickly find the emergency buttons you need to push."

---"Anyone who has lived in New York for more than a year knows what it's like to ride an elevator here that suddenly comes to a halt in between floors. I would rank elevator-ride-disaster stories among the leading disaster stories that we New Yorkers love to tell to all our friends and relatives who live outside our metro area. We New Yorkers feel we're like those American astronauts whose spaceship mission failed in mid-flight, but who somehow managed to escape from their spaceship and return to earth alive and well. There's a bit of Tom Hanks in all of us, and I'm referring, of course, to the movie in which courageous astronaut Tom Hanks famously announces to the entire world that 'Houston, we have a problem.'"

---"One of the reasons I always carry breath freshener with me in New York is that I never know when I'll be riding an elevator here and it suddenly goes out of order in between floors. This means I'll be having to converse with the other elevator passengers. I would experience a lot less interpersonal anxiety in that awkward scenario if I could freshen up my breath inside the stalled elevator."

---"One of the odd things about living in New York City is the surprising sense of camaraderie you develop toward the regulars on the subway routes that you yourself take on a regular basis. They're familiar faces, which can be very reassuring, even though you also know that you either never talk with them or you talk with them only occasionally. Their regularity assures you that they are not likely to be fly-by-night criminal types, at least. But I always try to keep in mind that many of the criminal types here may well keep regular schedules of some type. Their regularity, in fact, may just be a ruse they use in order to fool NYPD detectives into thinking them honorable and law-abiding."

---"My cousin and I have this game we play, whenever we get together. I will tell her my most recent estimate on how many total times I've been raped here in New York City in the last one-year period. Then she will reply that she feels very sure she's been raped more often than I have raped in the last one-year period. My cousin seems to take pride in having been raped more often in New York than I've been raped here! To me, getting raped shouldn't be something you brag about!"

---"My cousin tells me that she's getting raped every night during her sleep inside her bolt-locked apartment, but NYPD refuses to investigate because they say she hasn't proven to NYPD beyond a shadow of a doubt what the illegal point of entry into her apartment unit has been! The burden of proof is on her, according to NYPD detectives! Well, I told my cousin that it's very unfair for her to be expected to play the role of a police detective before NYPD will even think of visiting the ongoing crime scene inside her apartment! She's never had any formal training as a police officer, much less in the field of forensic science! Why do we pay taxes to the City of New York if NYPD is telling us they have a do-it-yourself policy toward criminal investigations of rape cases?"

---"I wanted to have my home professionally cleaned, but I didn't want to damage the DNA evidence at the scene of the crime---which is my home. As you know, I'm a daily and year-round victim of continuous rape crimes and personal-injury crimes during my sleep inside my bolt-locked home here in New York! But NYPD refuses to investigate! They say I haven't proven to NYPD any illegal point of entry into my home! So in the meantime, all the DNA evidence from illegal intruders inside my home every night is completely going ignored by the police!"

---"I find it embarrassing to note that the only subject I could possibly teach a college course on here is rape. As a single lady in New York, I seem to know more about rape than any other subject. I've been a rape victim so many times here that I'll probably get a special entry in the 'Guiness Book of World Records' for having been raped more times than anybody else in world history! So if I agree to teach a class on rape at a local community college here, how can I be sure that one of my male students won't assume that I'm secretly trying to seduce him through the topic I chose for my course? That's the inevitable dilemma I'll be facing if I pursue a career as Professor of Rape Studies here in New York! I just know that the week before final exams, one of my male students will ask me to visit him inside his college dorm room and help him prepare for his final exam using a hands-on approach to the subject matter! The risk of trivialization of my rape course could defeat the whole purpose of teaching a class of that type!"

----"I like to joke that my apartment unit here in New York has turned into a DNA factory. All I have to do is go to bed at night inside my bolt-locked apartment where I live alone and always sleep alone, and I'm guaranteed the next morning of waking up to dozens of fresh fingerprints all over my apartment and at least 10 new new pubic hairs of a variety of hair colors---from blond to red to jet-black----all over my bed from the latest round of illegal intruders age 29 or younger who molested me during my sleep. NYPD refuses to investigate, since NYPD says my bolt-lock to my front door apparently has not been broken. According to the geniuses at NYPD, this proves that I myself allegedly either slept-walked or walked from my bed to the front door of my apartment unit at 2 a.m., 3 a.m., 4 a.m., and, later, at 5 a.m this morning, in order to myself allegedly greet a variety of complete strangers at my front door by allegedly saying to each of them: "Hi, I'm Jane, I'll be your sleeping sex genie for the night, so please come in and feel free to molest me any way you like on my bed during my sleep! And please leave behind on my bed as many pubic hairs from your groin area as you possibly can! I crave pubic hairs from younger guys like yourself, and in fact, one of my favorite hobbies is collecting pubic hairs from as many men in their twenties as I possibly can! So far, my pubic-hair collection contains 1,000 hair follicles from 1,000 different men age 29 or younger! I find it terribly exciting to open up my pubic-hair collection scrapbook in my living room and sniff each and every one of those precious pubic hairs from 1,000 different younger men! That, to me, is truly an exhilarating heaven on earth experience!'"

---"All you have to do here in New York is complain to NYPD that a male stranger has raped you inside your home, and NYPD will immediately reply by asking you: 'Do you have any history of being a paid prostitute, or do you generally do it for free with the male strangers you agree to entertain inside your home?' Talking with NYPD afterward is almost as painful and disgusting to me as getting raped was."

---"So when the NYPD detective examined my naked anus and told me he didn't see any semen in there so no anal-rape crime could possibly have occurred, I tried my best to be polite. I asked the detective what his response would be if I could show him several ounces of semen in my anus the next time he visits my apartment in response to my next 911 call to NYPD at that future date. The wise-guy detective then says to me: 'The semen in your anus would only prove that you had planted it there yourself! That would immediately make you the suspect to arrest, since you'd obviously be guilty of filing false charges and providing fraudulent evidence to NYPD!'"

---"I'm hoping that NYPD will offer a 'Crime of the Month' feature profile at their official website. I love to read about new and exotic crimes being commited here. You might say it's one of my favorite pastimes as a New Yorker. I guess I'm a criminologist at heart. I'm a bit like Sherlock Holmes, except I don't smoke opium or heroin, or whatever it was he smoked in his leisuretime. I'd love to earn an honorary degree in Criminology from NYU if that were possible. But from what I've been told, you have to become famous first before NYU would even think of offering you an Honorary Degree. So now I have to figure out how to turn famous here in New York, in order to get consideration for an honorary degree in Criminology at NYU!"

---"One of the biggest surprises about life in New York is that none of the colleges here currently offers a 'Professor of Mafia Studies' endowed faculty position. You'd expect every one of the colleges of New York City to offer at least one independently-endowed professorship of Mafia Studies. The only problem I could foresee with a faculty position of that type is if the Mafia attempt to meddle by contacting a Mafia Studies professor and demanding that he revise his syllabus to reflect the demands and expectations of the local Mafia community. The Mafia representative who contacts the professor to present the Mafia's demands might then add that failure to comply with the Mafia's demands would be grounds for immediate termination, so to speak, of that faculty member."

---"I'm so used to being victimized by crime here in New York City that in my diary entries I only make a crime-related note for the days when I woke up on my bed and immediately sensed that NO ONE had molested me or raped me or injured me or physically tortured me or rudely awakened me in the middle of my sleep earlier that morning inside my bolt-locked apartment. September 3, 2011, and September 10, 2011, were the ONLY two days of the last one-and one-half-year period when I woke up and immediately sensed that no illegal intruder inside my bolt-locked apartment had physically tortured me on my bed in any way that morning. One theory of mine is that the criminal element held a two-day convention here in New York on Saturday, Sept. 3, 2011, and Saturday, Sept. 10, 2011, and that is why the usual thugs were not available to harass me and harm me during my sleep those two total mornings. Another theory of mine is that a devil-worshipping cult is the local religious group that's been repeatedly breaking into my bolt-locked apartment and repeatedly subjecting me against my wishes to anal rape and personal-injury crimes during my sleep, and that September 3, 2011, and September 10, 2011, were each religious holidays for that devil-worshipping cult. They were too busy practicing their voodoo and hexes rituals at a local devil-worshippers' meeting site to physically torture me and harm me during my sleep on those two total Saturday mornings of September 2011 that I will always cherish the rest of my life as having been very rare and very special occasions for me!"

----"As a newcomer to New York, I would appreciate the opportunity to attend a 'Get to Know Our CEO's' cultural event here. It would help me to decide which of the CEO's of corporations headquartered in the City are the ones I'm most likely to want develop a personal E-mail relationshnip with."

---"Do you think the New Yorkers who never get any sleep are afraid that if they do sleep, they'll enjoy it so much they'd remain asleep for years, a bit like Rip Van Winkle, and now I can't recall how the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' ends. Maybe if he had owned an alarm clock, he would have never had any difficulty waking up at the right time. It's odd that I can identify with Rip Van Winkle---he's very upstate, and I don't believe he ever lived here in Manhattan. From that standpoint, I don't have much in common with him."

---"As a newcomer to New York, I need to find an annotated bibliography of each of the very finest novels and short stories and theatrical plays and poems that were primarily or partly set in New York City. It's good to have a sense of your city as an inspiration for literature. It adds to the romantic appeal of living here when I can recall great works of fiction I've read that highlight New York at its best and worst."

---"I think it's very sad that there's no particular hot tea blend that I primarily associate with New York City. As an avid tea drinker, I would like to be able to boast to my friends that we New Yorkers take pride in our distinctive hot tea blend that was developed here first."

---"As an environmentalist, I would like to see more roadway signs along the highway that announce exactly how many miles you will have to drive or ride in order to reach a cited state park or national park or other public natural attraction such as the beach. As things stand, all you learn about on those roadway signs are dry statistics on how many miles you will need to drive or ride in order to reach Melbourne, Long Island."

---"I'm so in touch with the 'yen and yang' of life that I am surprised our state has never named any of our islands 'Short Island.' All we ever hear about is the famous Long Island, but there must be some New York State island that is tiny enough in length to merit the name 'Short Island'."

---"So tell me, how many islands are there that are considered to be part of our state's territory?"

---"If 'Moosewood Cookbook' is still a leading vegetarian cookbook, and that cookbook was written by residents of upstate New York, why hasn't any restaurateur here ever thought of opening up a Moosewood Cafe in New York City that highlights the very best of the 'Moosewood Cookbook' menu? After all, not every New Yorker is willing to travel to Ithaca for an enjoyable vegetarian meal."

---"Personally, I'd like to see an Upstate Avenue somewhere in New York. I'm talking about an avenue that features outdoor statues honoring each of the greatest contributors to our state who lived in upstate New York. An example of that might be the authors of the 'Moosewood Cookbook.' It's impressive how many New Yorkers here in the City have been turned on to vegetarian cooking because of that cookbook from upstaters."

---"My daughter complained to me that our state government shows prejudice against short persons. She points out that we have a well-known New York island called 'Long Island', but there is no famous island off our coastline that's called 'Short Island'. My reply to Suzy was that if she wants to see our Legislature name an island as 'Short Island,' maybe she should come up with a petition. She could cite and praise the shortest island worthy of being visited that she would like to see be renamed by our Legislature."

---"My 11-year-old son, Todd, is so sharp that when I recently asked him to please tell me based on his geography studies how many square miles is the total land area of the City of New York, Todd replied that he would prefer to answer that question in terms of square kilometers. Todd is so very 21st Century, and I respect him a lot for that. If only the rest of our country were as devoted as Todd is to making the conversion to the metric system, our beloved USA would be in much better shape than it is today!"

---"I'm new to New York City. Can you tell me where to go here to find the very best outdoor public statue of Franklin Delano Roosevelt that New York City has to offer? He was a favorite president of mine, and I'd like to see him up close!"

---"I wouldn't want to live too close to the Bronx Zoo. What if a tiger manages to escape from his cage in the middle of the night? I'd prefer to be living more than a mile away from the Bronx Zoo if something like that ever happens!"

---"I try to keep at least two Dutch recipes in my recipe collection inside my kitchen, in case I have a weekend guest from out of town who asks me to offer him something in keeping with New York's Dutch heritage for a meal inside my home here."

---"He told me he had expected to find some windmills in Manhattan, since New York City takes pride in its Dutch heritage, he said. So I told him that if he wants to find windmills, he should plan a trip to the Netherlands instead of New York."

---"He had expected to find a Dutch Theater here in Manhattan, in honor of New York City's Dutch heritage. Well, I told Peter that I have no idea what Dutch Theater is. Is that a theater featuring windmills or dikes as stage props, I asked him. I have never heard the term 'Dutch Theater' in my entire life. In fact, the only thing theatrical about the Netherlands I've ever heard about are all the people there getting high on illicit drugs every day. Drug-crazed people can be very dramatic----unless they're high on quaaludes, in which case they might come across as anti-dramatic."

---"There are days when I wish we had remained as New Amsterdam and all illicit drugs were legal here, like in the Netherlands. Then at least we could do an official annual census to find out exactly how many of our city's residents are marijuana addicts, how many of our residents are cocaine addicts, and how many of our residents are methamphetamine addicts. Those are the types of stats about New York that intrigue me the most. And if illicit drugs were legal here, everyone might be willing to provide an honest answer in a drug-addiction census of that type."

----"So which restaurant do you most associate with the anti-marijuana community here in New York? I am asking you that question because from what I've observed, 90 percent of the waiters of New York are potheads. I can't think of any restaurant here where the waiters aren't potheads, in fact, and I would love to dine in a restaurant where leaving a tip is not financing a waiter's marijuana addiction."

---"I dread the day when New York legalizes marijuana and the wedding ceremonies here will all feature passing the joint from the bride and bride-groom to everyone attending the event."

---"There are days when I look up at the Statue of Liberty and I sense from her facial expression that she's recovering from a hangover. How's that for a classic case of projection on my part?"

---"If New York has remained as New Amsterdam, there would be a red light district throughout our entire city. But that's pretty much the way it is right now, so I guess we have been very faithful to our Dutch heritage in that one category."

---"If Mayor Bloomberg were so concerned about the medical health and lifespan of New Yorkers, why doesn't he begin by imposing a ban on the sale of marijuana paraphernalia in our local stores? Marijuana has been proven to be very harmful to the health, but half of our city's residents consume it as if it were a sacred substance!"

---"Sarah came up with this wild idea of celebrating her entire birthday month of June by exclusively dining throughout that entire month in each of the five-star restaurants of New York City. I told Sarah that her idea sounds fun, if her husband is a billionaire and he wants to throw away half of his fortune in one month's time."

---"If New York is the leading city of New York State, which city should get second-best-city status? To me, it would be nice if our New York state legislature would confer an honorary award on our state's second-best city, since I have no idea what that city is and it definitely deserves more recognition than it's currently getting. I love the idea of a 'Welcome to New York's Second-Finest City' sign greeting anyone and everyone as they enter that city, whatever it is and wherever it's located, and I frankly have no idea what or where that city is."

---"I feel sorry for the upstate New Yorkers who get tired of hearing that they live in the 'hinterlands'. I, for one, do not regard upstate New Yorkers as inconsequential nobodies. In fact, five of my friends live in upstate New York, and I'm very proud of that fact. And besides, it gives me a place to stay without having to pay for a hotel room, whenever I visit upstate New York. That is definitely one of the leading perqs from having a designated upstate New York friend, I would say. I always make a point of handing my host family a free copy of the 'New York Times' as a present to them during my overnight stay, which gives them a chance to vicariously thrill to what we cultured New Yorkers are doing in Manhattan."