Sunday, July 16, 2017

MORE QUOTATIONS FROM THE INDEFATIGABLE EAVESDROPPER IN AN IMAGINARY NEW YORK CITY OF TODAY:

---"I never carry an umbrella with me when I fly from Kennedy to a Middle Eastern country. The chances of my facing rain in that foreign country are so tiny that it's almost a joke for me to be carrying an umbrella."

---"She knows A to Z about all of the ritzy hotels and nightclubs and restaurants throughout our state. But if you ask her about the nature parks of New York, she's a complete flunkie. I think she has a mental block against nature parks, because they expose the grim truth that she's a desperately overdressed social climber. She knows nothing about climbing mountains. She's a social climber, and that is all she ever will be."


---"I find it tragic how many New Yorkers would fail a geography test if the subject were New York Topography. About the only topography most New York men ever notice is the jiggling hills on the ladies they see walking around town."


--"Della is so obsessed with social-climbing that she has probably paid 'The Times' in advance to publish an obituary about her 50 years later under the headline, 'Della's Social Ascent Earned Her High Marks'."


--"I always know when I need to get out of town for the weekend. It's when a voice inside me starts recalling the famous phrase, 'Far From the Maddening Crowd'.  Whenever I hear that internal voice telling me that the crowd around me is 'maddening', I always head for Long Island for the weekend."

--"For me, the crowds here are so maddening, and particularly the drug addicts and drug dealers I dread the sight of, that I have thoughts of fleeing to Long Island every day of the year. 
"My favorite get-away place on Long Island is a well-kept secret, since I want to keep that refuge-for-the-weekend site as obscure as possible to other New Yorkers. If I could, I would even be willing to pay travel writers for The Times lots of money to NEVER write any feature article about that place on Long Island that I cherish. I use only cash whenever I visit that secret location for myself on weekends, since I don't want anyone to get a credit-card trace on where I was staying. 
"I realize that puts me at increased risk of getting robbed at gunpoint, if anyone found out I had cash in my wallet. So I never tell anyone that I have cash on me when I flee from Manhattan for the weekend. 
"Also, I make a point of stuffing my wallet with several fake $100 bills, just in case I get robbed at gunpoint. I keep my real $100 bills separate from the fake cash at all times. My only worry is that if I get robbed at gunpoint, the robber might be able to tell that the bills I handed him were all counterfeit. At that point, he might be so angry that he'd shoot me. So maybe I should wear a bullet-proof vest whenever I head to Long Island for the weekend. But that would feel very hot and uncomfortable, which would defeat the whole purpose of getting away from here on weekends."

---"I wish I knew the name of the leading scholar on Urban Stress. You would think there would be an Urban Stress Research Institute at one of the universities here. Maybe I could find a scholar with expertise on that subject who would offer me some pointers on how to reduce my stress level as a New Yorker. 
"I would try massages, but I don't trust the persons who are touching my body that way. They might try to force themselves on me at a point when I am reading a newspaper and I'm caught completely off-guard. Maybe I should check to see if there is a professional organization for massage-givers that guarantees that all of its members will never try to get fresh with me when they're massaging me. This is one way to protect myself against over-sexed New Yorkers."

--"It would be fascinating to find out whether all this publicity about President Trump and Russia has prompted increased sales at the Russian Tea Room here. Another possibility is that New Yorkers are so nauseated by Russian scandals that they blame the Russian Tea Room for it all. That is not fair to the employees of that restaurant, since they had nothing to do with Donald Trump's or his son's scandalous activities."

---"I get so media-saturated here that one day of each month I make a point of not watching television or listening to the radio or reading a newspaper. That is always the calmest day of the month for me, but it's also the day when I am most aware of being in artificially-generated bliss. 
"That is a bit different from true and natural bliss, which can last as long as two days, such as on your honeymoon after you just got married to a handsome gentleman you actually savor in person. The third day is when you figure out that your fantasized view of your new husband was too good to be true."

--"I think every New Yorker's worst fear is that when they're held up at gunpoint at Central Park, they will hand over the wrong wallet to the mugger. They will hand over their real wallet that contains real $100 bills---not the fake wallet they also keep in a back pocket that contains counterfeit bills. 
"Another worst-case scenario is if you are shopping inside Macy's with both of those wallets on you, you accidentally pull out the fake-money wallet and hand the store clerk a counterfeit $100 bill as payment for some expensive cologne you picked out. That could get you arrested in a matter of seconds, and it's unlikely the jury will believe your story when your case goes to trial."

---"I was shocked to find out I can't get a Mugging Victims Insurance policy that pays me back within 24 hours for all the money I lost from my most recent incident of being mugged. When I moved here, I just assumed that every New Yorker has a special Mugging Victims Insurance Policy designed to protect them whenever they visit Central Park or go anywhere else in public here in The City."

--"At least here in Manhattan, if you are single and celibate you are 10,000 times more likely to get noticed by someone as a prospective dating partner for them than if you were living in Buffalo. With the millions we have  in Manhattan, the statistics here are in favor of human interaction with at least one person who expresses a tentative romantic interest in you. I also like the hypothetical odds here for an actual MUTUAL-attraction occurring at some point in any given calendar year---much better odds than in Buffalo, I would say."

---"Maybe what I need is a book of statistical odds that each cite possible happy scenarios for me here in Manhattan. For instance, what are the odds of my landing a job here that pays me more than $20,000 gross annual pay? Better odds than if I lived in Buffalo, I would think."

---"You should hire a personal consultant who specializes in compiling statistical odds for New York City residents in a variety of categories. Those statistics could help you a lot, by reminding you that the odds are in your favor in any given category when nothing is currently going your way. That's why I refer to the type of consultant you need as a 'Good News Stats Advisor'. For instance, what are the odds of your finding an apartment unit in Manhattan that has not been broken into on any occasion in the most recent 12-month period. Maybe your 'Good News Stats Consultant' can help you to identify the factors that might increase your odds for not being subjected to a home-invasion crime here."

---"I always savor the middle initials of the New York Times reporters. It proves they're special. Not that I can ever guess what their middle initial stands for. But those middle initials always add to the Times reporters' stature and authoritative aura. The other newspapers here never hire reporters who have middle names that get mentioned in their by-lines. Maybe the other papers are ashamed of their reporters' middle names. Or maybe they're afraid of their reporters getting harassment calls if an irate reader got their home phone number using their middle initial."

--"The question, here in New York, is not your age group. The question is: Are you in your 20s or your 30s, income-bracket wise? If you are in the 30,000 to 40,000 gross income bracket, that is much more impressive than if you are in the 20,000 to 30,000 gross income bracket. No one wants to waste their time with anyone in their 20s range. 'Wait until you gross at least $30,000 per year before you talk to me', New Yorkers might as well declare. And I don't blame them. No one wants to get stuck with a loser."

---"Ted has a great idea for a new product to market. He has developed a new high-fiber pretzel with 50 percent less sodium that is shaped like a map image of either New York State or Long Island or Manhattan Island. Ted hopes to make a million out of it. And maybe then he'll remember us little people who offered him words of encouragement before he turned rich and famous."

---"It's always encouraging to sense that after Ted becomes rich and famous, you'll get asterisk status on the acknowledgements page of the autobiographical account he writes that thanks each of the persons who contributed to his success story. You haven't lived until you get cited somewhere, even if it's on the very bottom of the page, on the acknowledgements page of a best-selling book published by a major-league publisher here."

--"I would love to see an awards ceremony each year in which the NYPD officer who in the most recent calendar year prevented the largest number of homicides or attempted homicides from occurring here, gets public praise and recognition, along with a special financial prize for that accomplishment. To me, that prize should be at least $50,000 as a supplement to that NYPD officer's annual salary. The only pitfall is if the prize-winning NYPD officer claims he had more homicide-preventions for any given calendar year than he actually achieved. Some unethical NYPD officer may find a way to lie with statistics in order to claim that $50,000 reward that should be going to another officer instead. For instance, if he's an NYPD officer who has ties to the Mob, he could arrange for a faked attempted homicide, using his Mobster associates for that, in order to then himself stage a faked thwarting of that faked felony crime. This would artificially jack up his total arrest stats in that category----a shameless display of audacity and chutzpah by that particular NYPD officer, if you ask me.
"Then if he gets the award, an internal affairs investigator for NYPD might suddenly reveal that the honored officer should instead get fired for filing fraudulent reports about heroic deeds he didn't actually have. So then the award would go to another officer, at that point, with everyone hoping and praying that no one in Internal Affairs would suddenly reveal a scandal exposing that most recent award recipient to public ridicule and dismissal from the department."

































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