NEW YORKERS OVERHEARD AGAIN: AN OCTOBER 2017 IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT FROM MANHATTAN

---"As an avid tea drinker, I find it embarrassing that most people think of high-quality American tea in terms of that company in Connecticut---Bigelow. There is no world-famous gourmet-style tea being produced in New York, and I am outraged by our inability to compete with Connecticut in that category!"

---"My 8-year-old daughter wants to know who came up with the spelling for our neighboring state of Connecticut. My daughter's theory is that the official spelling for Connecticut was deliberately designed to humiliate as many schoolchildren as possible when they compete in spelling bees. The silent second 'c' in Connecticut is a trick of some type, my daughter claims."

---"So how many other American-language words do you know that contain silent 'c's? This is the question my 8-year-old daughter asked me when I told her about the silent second 'c' in Connecticut."

--"We shouldn't forget that many of these New England names came from the American Indians. So maybe we should be thanking American Indians for giving us some friendly torture whenever we try to say or spell that New England place's name."

---"My son is so down-to-earth that when I told him I hope he becomes acquainted with Yale someday, he replied, 'Why would I have a need for a locksmith?'"

--"Personally, I find it amusing that whenever a speaker at Yale gets heckled by his audience, the newspaper headline could read: 'He Got Yelled at at Yale!' But they never do use that headline; I think it's partly because newspapers don't want to put two prepositions next to each other in a headline."

---"I've heard of New Yorkers fleeing to Vermont for a weekend retreat, but for some reason New Hampshire does not get mentioned much as a weekend mini-vacation destination. Do you know why that is?"

---"I began collecting paperweights from each of the northeastern places I visit for a vacation. However, my hobby ended abruptly after I  accidentally dropped a paperweight from Maine on my foot, and I had to have my foot operated on. It felt as if I had been bitten by a lobster, and the doctor who performed the surgery even told me to stay away from lobsters."

---"My wife is an optimist. She always tells me that with the millions of people who live in New York, we each have great odds for making at least 10 friends here in 2017. Since I'm a pessimist, I always reply to my wife that New York has one of the highest percentage of residents of any American city that you can immediately disqualify as prospective friends. The weeding out process here takes forever, because New York is so full of drug addicts and current alcoholics and scam artists and organized-crime mobsters. Can you imagine hosting a party here only to be told by an  invited  guest that one of the other invited guests attending that party is a well-known Mafia figure?"