NEW YORK CITY REVISITED: ANOTHER IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT

"To me, a true fire drill here in New York should also give everybody a chance to practice fleeing down an outdoor fire escape staircase along the edge of an apartment building. I'm amazed the fire department hasn't invited me to participate in a fire drill of that type. Maybe they're afraid I might fall from the staircase, which would be a legal liability for the City of New York."

"New Yorkers are so sarcastic that we don't get just acid rain here, we get ACIDULOUS rain. I often have nightmares during my sleep about everyone in New York being so acid-tongued that I don't know what to say when they talk to me. I'm a sweet type of guy, and I wouldn't know how to be sarcastic even if I tried."

"When I joined a local environmental protection group as a way of getting to know the community better, the first comment I got at a social mixer sponsored by that non-profit group was: 'So how do you like the Acid Rain here?"

"The Hispanic lady who lives next door to me loves her mother so much that she told me she plans to celebrate Mother's Day twice a year with two separate parties in her mom's honor. First on the day when most Americans honor their mothers, and then on the day when the people in Mexico celebrate 'Dia de la Madre', as I believe she called it. She says she hopes her mother will feel twice as proud to have her as her daughter."

"I'm so glad I don't have to be a contestant on a television quiz show about the United Nations. I don't remember which day of the year, if any, is UN Day. Then again, I have never been invited to a UN Day party here in Manhattan. So my friends don't celebrate that day, either."

"So why can't we have an award-winning subway system here in New York? This is a very competitive city, and there should be a global competition each year to find out how our subway system ranks when compared with London's and Moscow's and Tokyo's subway systems. And even if we don't finish in first place, at least we always have Buffalo to keep us from ranking last place. Our subway system will always be better than Buffalo's."

---"I'm planning to think globally more than last year. It's one of my New Year's resolutions. However, I have no idea where I will find a college-level course I could take here that teaches me everything I want to know about the Untied Nations and its history. I think I'll start with City University of New York, then go from there."

---"Personally, I enjoy memorizing the exotic names of the Secretary Generals--or is that Secretaries General---of the United Nations. One of my favorites was a guy with the name 'U Thant'. I always wanted to say, 'You What?' whenever a friend of mine told me the latest about what Secretary General U Thant was up to."

---"I hope the New York City Council requires the outdoor food vendors to use solar power or wind power for heating the food they sell. It might cut down our air pollution problem overnight if all the food vendors had to rely on solar power or wind power to heat their food on the sidewalk here."

--"Do you know whether the city ordinances here require that a mayor must be a native of the United States? If there is an ordinance of that type, it was probably authored by a city official who wanted to prevent any native of Sicily from somehow getting elected Mayor here in a rigged election."

---"It is possible to survive in New York without being sarcastic. There's even a guidebook here that is entitled, 'A Non-Sarcastic New Yorker's Guide to the Big Apple'".

---"She is so ultra-wealthy that I don't blame her for requiring any male person who wants to date her to first pass a lie detector test in which one of the questions is, 'Do you seek to marry her primarily for her money?' If a guy fails the lie detector test, she sends them a polite 'I Bid you Adieu' greeting card to show she's real classy about rejecting them with style."

---"I would define manners in New York as not blowing your nose at your dining table when you are eating a meal in a restaurant here. The well-mannered New Yorkers always politely excuse themselves to walk to the restroom and blow their nose there."

----"Harry is so wild about ladies who for their career sit all day at the front desk in the lobby of office buildings that he walks all over New York every week to find out what all the ladies currently holding that job look like. He says he prefers to limit his romantic life to ladies holding a job of that type. For some reason he finds the front-desk lobby ladies to be the most glamorous women in all of New York!"

---"I wish I had a nickel for every time a New Yorker has asked me if I have any favorite tax dodge I recommend for them! With all the New Yorkers trying to avoid paying their fair share of income taxes to the IRS, I could make a million dollars from a deal like that. But then I would have to report all of my earnings to the IRS, and they would probably take away half of what I earned from it all. I'd still be $500,000 richer, though, in the best of all possible worlds."

---"Let's face it. This is one city where there is something very wrong with you if you don't spend half of your leisuretime talking with friends about how to get rich fast and then buy a condo unit outright. If you aren't obsessed with making lots of money here, you end up getting swallowed up by something like quicksand. You suddenly vanish from the scene here if you aren't financially crazed at all times. Idealism is fine, but only as an afterthought to financial success."