AN AUGUST 2017 IMAGINARY EAVESROPPER'S REPORT FROM NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK:

---"Whenever I dine out, I can tell by their facial expressions that the waiters here have all pegged me as a stingy tipper. They are very mistaken. But I get bad service every time because they all assume I'm a hopeless case. 'Why bust your buns for that customer, when you already know he's a 10 percent tip, at most', one of the waiters says to another within earshot of me. I was thoroughly disgusted by that comment, and I felt like giving him a piece of my mind. Instead, I tipped 20 percent, hoping that he would then admit to his coworker that he had misjudged me. Instead, what I heard him declare from their open-air waitstation was, 'This is very disgusting, it's obviously a flirtation tip! I DO NOT DATE senior citizens, no matter how financially strapped I am!', he says. Then he says, 'So why is it that I appeal to dirty old men, when I just blew a total of 20 candles on my own birthday cake yesterday and I very definitely DON'T have any wrinkles on my face!'. 
"So this is what I get for being a nice guy in Manhattan!"

---"I would estimate that about 10 percent of the persons who currently live in New York City would do much better in Rochester or Albany or Buffalo. But if I mention that to them, they get very angry. 'Are you trying to railroad me out of town?' they demand to know in a very accusatory voice."

---"She is so crazy about Gouda cheese and all the health benefits from vitamin K2-rich Gouda that I hear she is planning to open up a Gouda Cheesecake Factory here that promises to offer everyone a massive shot of vitamin K2 that can save their life by promoting distribution of the calcium they get from that cheese to their bones and not their arteries."

--"So tell me, which official televised 'State of the City' address delivered by a mayor here do you believe was the greatest ever? I am asking this partly because I want you to prove to me that you are very proud of our city's history."

---"One lesson I've learned from my own study of New York history is that addiction to Italian racing cars can be a fatal attraction."

--"Does it ever give you goosebumps to think about the millions of Americans who are sitting in very ordinary restaurants in the hinterlands, as I call them, and are ordering an item from their menu primarily because it says 'New York-style'  just before that item? Let's face it, our dear old New York is brimming with charisma, sex appeal, romantic appeal, charm, etc. Our city's name sells lots of food products outside of New York, even if the food product comes from a place like Illinois or California or Massachusetts. And the funny part is that 90 percent of the stuff that gets billed as New York-style would fail an authenticity test here if all the chefs of our city were asked to judge it for level of trueness to our city's culinary tradition."

---"One of the first things the tourists ask me is where do I recommend they go for a true New York bagel. It's either that or 'Where's the best place for true New York cheesecake?' I should be getting paid by our Chamber of Commerce, for all the referrals I give out. But you can be sure that I get nothing for all the great referrals I offer to the tourists here. I can't even deduct those referrals from my state income taxes, which is very unfair to me since I help to generate lots of sales for our city's bakeries."

--"I love the idea of a new cable TV series for foodies that's entitled, 'We're Baking It in New York'. I think it could earn millions for whoever does that series."

--"Do you ever wonder what the people of New York are thinking about when they ride an elevator to the top floor of a building here? Maybe what we need is a thought-process monitoring device that gets a candid look into what types of thoughts they're having as they travel 40 stories upward toward the Moon. What worries me about that type of project is that many of those thoughts will be flagrantly suicidal. It's New Yorkers debating whether they should or shouldn't take a flying leap when they reach the top floor. A bit like a scene from Hamlet that features the line, 'To be or not to be, that is the question'! The drama of New York life is always there, especially on elevator rides!"

--"I have a bisexual friend who loves to date elevator operators. She says she finds it very sexy whenever anyone, male or female, stands in an elevator all day and pushes buttons for passengers. To Sally, the elevator operator of New York is every bit as romantic a figure as  the television game-show star Vanna White, who's world-famous for turning letters of the alphabet for a living."

--"Many of the best conversations I ever have are on our city's elevators. Personally, I find that to be a poignant commentary about the very low caliber of the conversations I have with other New Yorkers when I'm away from the elevator scene."

--"Have you ever noticed a decline in the art of conversation as exhibited by our city's service-sector employees? All they can say is this ridiculously fatuous 'Have a nice day', and sometimes I want to punch them in the face I get so disgusted by it! I would prefer that they offer me a substantive observation about the mayor's policies, but they never do for some reason. I guess they figure it would reveal their political beliefs as being very incompatible with my own!"

--"Trevor is so chauvinistic about New York that he told me he believes the City should have sued Apple computers for borrowing our nickname. Trevor says he is sure our city's 'Big Apple' nickname is trade-marked. I told him no, and he can consult any business law attorney who will tell him the same. And furthermore, none of the Apple computers bear the name 'Big Apple'. So we would definitely lose our legal challenge if we took on Apple Computers in a courtroom!"

---"I always find it delightfully redundant to own an Apple computer in the Big Apple. Which reminds me. Maybe some real-estate developer will plant an indoor apple orchard inside a new mega-mall here that he'll name as 'Big Apple Mall'. A special sign in front of the indoor apple orchard could declare, 'We're the Biggest Apple of them all, and proud of it!'"

---"Living in New York is like biting into a nice juicy big red apple on Halloween when you're a kid, and suddenly encountering a razor in your apple! You are eternally being tantalized and injured, every day of the year here! And you never quite feel that you are being allowed to lead an adult life here. New York City infantilizes you while depriving you of a mother's breast milk!"