ALSO OVERHEARD IN NEW YORK CITY, HAD I BEEN THERE AT THE TIME TO LISTEN TO THEIR CONVERSATIONS ON THE SIDEWALKS OF THAT NORTHEASTERN CITY:

"I keep my futon lying directly on the floor of my private bedroom, since I want to eliminate any scenario in which an illegal intruder might be able to hide under my bed. There's no way that anyone but a very tiny midget could squeeze his body under my futon the way I've got it laid out right on the floor like that. It's a crime-prevention strategy I pursue for foiling the thousands of would-be rapists our city is so notorious for!"

"You do admit, though, that your strategy does not prevent a very tiny midget from hiding under your futon when you go to bed at nighttime. Maybe you should ask NYPD for a mug shot of each and every crime suspect four feet tall or shorter who has ever been arrested by the police here at any time in the last 10-year period. That way, you'll at least have a good list of possible suspects you can glance at to charge at least one of them with home invasion, breaking and entering, personal-injury to yourself, and sexual assault, if anything ever does happen to you inside your bedroom."

"They cram so many people into the elevators in our city that I plan to carry an oxygen tank with me whenever I enter an elevator. My thinking is that if the elevator stops working between floors, I can at least have that reserve supply of oxygen to save my life with while we wait for the New York Fire Department to rescue us. With all the people breathing heavily inside the elevator, I could suffocate if I didn't have that oxygen tank with me in there."

"Personally, my rule of thumb is to never go on an elevator ride here if I sense that more than five people might be riding with me. If the elevator stops working between floors, I'll need all the oxygen I can get to survive that ordeal. The last thing I need is a bunch of oxygen-guzzling New Yorkers robbing me of my chance to get some breathing room in that type of crisis."

"To me, the biggest surprise here in New York is that I have never heard of any research center here called the 'Institute for the Study of Any and All Anxieties That Humans Ever Experience or Accumulate'. New York is the perfect city for a research center of that type. In my own life, I cover the gamut from A to Z in my anxieties just from being an honest and law-abiding and vigilant and idealistic New Yorker."

"I call 911 an average of twice per day to report crime evidence I observe here, and I'm told that's about average for a New Yorker with true integrity. It's not that I expect the City to honor me with a Vigilant Citizen Award. My thinking is that if I help to protect other New Yorkers from violent crime, maybe they will call 911 for me if they ever see me lying on the sidewalk with blood all over me. With my luck, though, the New Yorker who discovers me on the sidewalk will comment to a friend of theirs that 'it's obvious this is a scene from a movie being shot here. I don't see the movie cameras, but the blood is obviously fake. I get tired of all these fake-blood scenes here in New York! And if the hidden camera somehow included me in this scene without my consent, I plan to sue that movie-production company!'"

"I had a heart-breaking moment the other day when I had no choice but to report to my work supervisor that a very nice and attractive and clean-cut 20-year-old Anglo gentleman who had just joined our workplace smelled like cocaine when he approached my cubicle to say 'hello'. When that young man later failed the drug test that our boss ordered him to take, I felt awful that my new coworker lost his job. Maybe he will get the addiction treatment he needs ASAP if he wants to last longer than one day at his next workplace."

"Personally, I feel we should have a cocaine-sniffing and marijuana-sniffing guard dog greeting each and every one of my coworkers and work supervisors every day when they enter my own workplace. If the dog begins to bark, that is all the proof my top boss should need to immediately put that employee on suspension without pay."

"Half the New York men that I know, if I tell them that I support the 'Neighborhood Watch' concept, they will smirk at me and say, "Does that mean it's okay with you if I point some binoculars from my apartment toward yours and I watch you for hours on end whenever you are naked in your bedroom?" They are so sophomoric that they have no idea what Neighborhood Watch means. They assume Neighborhood Watch is a local lifestyle tradition on behalf of voyeuristic 'Peeping-Tom' thrills."

"If my boss had a policy of firing anyone who fails a drug-dog-sniffing test, I wouldn't have any coworkers left. I would have to do all the work of 20 people, and I would still get paid the same amount on my paycheck. It would be a no-win situation."

"One of my female coworkers told me her biggest fear is that a drug-sniffing dog will be an invited guest of our work supervisor for a 'Meet Your Canine Friend Day' surprise event at our workplace. My coworker says she is very sure the dog would be sniffing and barking all over her, and then her boss would hand her a pink slip. That type of scene is in so many of my coworker's nightmares during her sleep."

"Whenever I complain to the police here that I was raped inside my bedroom by an illegal intruder, they always snap at me that it's obvious the rapist I complain about was actually an invited guest, so it was all mutual-consent stuff and I'm a liar, the officer says. To prevent that type of reply by the police here in the future, I bought a narrow twin-size futon I sleep on alone that is specially designed to hold just one person. So the next time some NYPD wise guy sarcastically says to me that 'everything was obviously mutual-consent', I'll have the perfect reply: 'So why do you think I bought this very narrow twin-size bed, if I'm so interested in hosting all of New York's single men on my bed?'"

"The strategy that most New Yorkers seem to follow is that the less they talk with NYPD about anything, the greater their own chances of never getting charged with anything. One of my restaurant coworkers told me the other day that she always stays away from 'the cops,' as she calls them, and she 'avoids them like the plague,' she says. To me, it's unfair to compare police officers with the Bubonic Plague. After all, the Bubonic Plague was in Europe, not in the United States. And that was several centuries ago."

"The next time a restaurant coworker of mine tells me that they will NEVER call the police about anything, no matter what, I plan to ask them, 'What if a close friend of yours or relative of yours was ever stabbed by an intruder? In that situation, would you be willing to call 911 and report the incident to NYPD?"

"The most frightening moments in the life of any New Yorker are the periods at 3 a.m. in the morning when it is very, very quiet as you lie alone on your own bed inside your apartment unit. To me, nothing is more eery that a zero-noise situation in this city. A zero-noise period in New York is very, very suspicious, suggesting that some organized-crime group is carrying out what they consider to be the 'perfect crime' in which no signs of any break-in are ever observed by anyone."

"Whenever I attend a job interview here in New York, it's like a double whammy against me. In half of my job interviews, the interviewer tells me that I am over-educated and over-qualified. In the other half of the job interviews I attend, the interviewer tells me I am UNDER-educated and UNDER-qualified. Either way, the interviewer is suspicious of me and indicates that I could not possibly land a job there under those circumstances."

"Maybe the New York State prison authorities at Attica should establish a specially-labeled "Cocaine Crimes Wing" and "Marijuana Crimes Wing" to publicize the idea that New Yorkers need to stop selling or snorting cocaine and marijuana if they want to stay out of prison. I don't know why about half of our city's residents currently fail to see that point."

"If Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump gets elected President, this will be the first time since the Great Depression that a New Yorker actually makes it into the White House. I wonder if that tells you something about the level of popularity of New Yorkers in other states. I think many Americans don't trust us since were are the 'Empire State,' and they were told by the 'Star Wars' movies that 'The Empire' is evil."

"It's ironic that Cadillac has moved its headquarters to New York City. You can be sure that half of the drug dealers here are addicted to purchasing the latest-model Cadillacs to be seen driving around town in. The drug dealers here are the most obvious group who are overjoyed by the increased Cadillac presence in the Big Apple. They see it as adding to their own prestige here--and that, to me, is very tragic. These drug dealers here figure they are a Big Man on Campus, so to speak, since they drive a Cadillac everywhere they go while making cocaine deliveries."

"My brother has a theory about Cadillac owners here. If you see opera spectacles inside a parked Cadillac in Manhattan, this means the owner is NOT a drug dealer. Our city's thousands of drug dealers tend to steer away from the opera scene. They are not exactly cultured types, if you get my drift. I plan to contact an NYU sociologist I know and ask her if my brother's theory is correct."

"That teenage newcomer to New York is so naïve that when he was asked by a longtime New Yorker if he would like to try free basing cocaine, he replied that he is open to any free items that New York has to offer him. 'If it's free and there's no charge, I'm willing to taste what 'basing cocaine' is like," he says to this savvy insider here. Apparently this newcomer thought everything would be complementary here for him, including New York's worst and most dangerous vices, all included in an exotic Welcome Wagon package from the locals here. No one even told this ever-so-young newcomer that if he even touches cocaine, he'll get a free trip to Reiker's Island for a never-ending resort-spa experience he will never forget."

"Anyone who works in a retail business here in New York devotes much of his on-duty time to checking the back-door exit every half-hour in order to make sure it is completely shut and fully locked at all times. It's a well-known fact that members of the criminal element here like to break into a business from its derriere, or its behind, if you will. They ambush the store from the back alley; and they seem to look upon it as anal rape they boldly pursue without any lubricant being used. If you did a word-association game with criminals here in New York in which you stated the word 'Passion', the first word they would verbalize is "Rear Entry'."

"My son Harold took a class on Criminology at NYU and the professor loudly declared in front of the entire class that Harold was so smart in that subject that the professor wanted Harold to explain to his classmates what makes him so knowledgeable in that subject. To me, that was the rudest question a professor has ever asked my son Harold. It was like the professor announcing to the entire class that he wants Harold to pass a lie-detector test before Harold is allowed to continue studying what criminals are like."

"So tell me, just how long is Long Island? I have never seen actual statistics comparing the length of Long Island with all the other islands off the coast of the mainland United States. I find it hard to believe that Long Island is, in fact, the longest island in American oceanic waters. But neither do I know which island does fit that description. The subject never came up in the geography class I took at NYU."

"I think a lot of the single men from Long Island look upon their place of residence as a clever flirtation line with the young ladies they meet in the nightclubs of Manhattan. When our Long Island men are asked by those young ladies where they come from, they invariably smile at the word 'Long' when they offer their three-syllable reply. I can see where some of the single women regard that as crassly sexist style. But for many young ladies, the 'Long' part comes across as seductive on first meeting with an attractive Long Island man."

"What I need the most right now is a copy of the most recent 'State of the City' address, the most recent 'State of the State' address from Albany, and the most recent 'State of the Union' address. I feel it's my patriotic duty as a New Yorker to memorize all three of those official documents. I'm a bit like Forest Gump that way. I'm a Super-Patriot in the grand tradition of Tom Hanks."

"I've always felt incomplete as a New Yorker, since I don't know how to ride a horse at Central Park. Maybe I should do a google search for horse-riding instructors at Central Park. I would have to find one who is bonded, though. As a consumer, I refuse to hire a non-bonded horse-riding instructor. I'd also have to insist on an instructor who teaches me how to handle the situation if the horse I'm riding on gets horse-napped by a member of the criminal element. That would imply that I myself am also at risk of getting kidnapped, since would be on that horse at the time of the incident."

"One of my frustrations with walking shoes here in New York is this: the type of shoe that feels the most comfortable for me when I hike on a grassy area of Central Park is not the same type of shoe that feels the comfortable for me when I walk on the concrete sidewalks of Manhattan. Maybe I should find a shoe that lets me switch gears, so to speak, depending on the walking surface I'm on."

"It's a compliment to you that so many of the single men here want to meet you for breakfast inside a restaurant. Maybe they would feel more cheerful if they met you over fried eggs. Or maybe they fantasize about waking up to you in the morning. If so, that's very romantic. But I can understand why you say you would prefer to date men here who want to meet you for lunch or dinner. The lunchtime and dinnertime scene in Manhattan is probably more romantic overall. It is easier to imagine a single man handing you an engagement ring over dinner than over pancakes."

"I would like to join a Freedom from Terrorism parade march here, but if I ever do something like that, the headline in the 'New York Post' the next morning will read: 'Massacre on Fifth Avenue: Anti-Terrorism Parade Turns Into Tornado of Terroristic Violence!'"

"I am uncomfortable sometimes about my reputation for being non-materialistic. Whenever a single man here asks me out on a date, he starts out by praising me for being a cheaper date than 99 percent of all the single ladies here are. I feel as if my name has been listed in a consumer guide as a 'Best Value' dating prospect in the Big Apple. I feel a bit cheapened by it all. I have to explain to Rick or Tom, whatever his name is, that contrary to my reputation, I would prefer NOT to meet him inside a McDonald's restaurant for our first date."