A RETURN TO NEW YORK FOR ANOTHER IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT: AUGUST 2018

----"Whenever I get together with her, it's like a card game in which we're both trying to out-trump each other with the names of famous persons we each know. I usually win those 'who do you know' contests, since I have everything documented through signatures I've obtained from celebrities here. Sheila, by contrast, relies heavily on flagrant assertions she'll make, such as that she still has a hickey she got from one of the famous men she claims to have dated. So then I'll challenge Sheila, asking her to prove that the hickey came from the famous man she claims it came from, and she will eventually back down. It's like I'm proving her to be a liar, every time we talk famous people we know! Come to think of it, maybe it's not wise for me to keep up with a woman who lies to me as flagrantly as Sheila does when it comes to her claims about connections to famous New Yorkers! Sheila is the closest thing I know to a Queen of Fraudulent Claims!"

---"Personally, I try to pretend that the honking noises I hear are a symphonic performance in which each horn player is responding to the other horn player in a harmonious manner. This is how I pretend that there's no civil war going on here on our city's roadways!"

---"I plan to write a 'nextdoor.com' posting every week in which I give public recognition to the one New Yorker I identified that week who in my opinion was the most flagrantly and shockingly underpaid for their talents. That reminds me that I need to ask the sales clerks at Macy's who offer me free samples of their perfumes to tell me their salary level. I then plan to publicize my emphatic view that they deserve better pay than that, for the noble service that they are offering at Macy's! These sales clerks are making it possible for the ladies of New York to re-think the scent that they present to the entire world, and that, to me, is a truly great enhancement to the olfactory quality of life that the men of New York are achieving through their nostrils."

---"I don't have the heart to tell her that the perfume she feels passionately about wearing every day reminds me of what a hooker in Las Vegas smells like. This is definitely a case of ignorance can be bliss, as far as I'm concerned---unless some blunt man here comes up to Janet and tells her that her scent reminds him of the hookers of Las Vegas! At that point, Janet's fantasy about having an ideal scent for all of New York to savor is suddenly smashed to bits by yet another bold and very blunt New Yorker!"

--"Do you ever get the impression that every stranger you are meeting here these days reminds you of a character from 'Seinfeld'? Does this indicate that New Yorkers are all seeking to emulate the characters from that 1980s TV series?"

---"If someone would prove to me that my hobbies would help me to pay my rent each month, I would feel a lot happier about them. But as it is, my hobbies are costing me money that I need for paying rent. Maybe I should stop having hobbies for a six month period, to see if my finances improve."

---"You are overlooking the point that if you get a reputation for having a hobby, this could be useful to you when you apply for a job here. Your interviewer may ask you to state your hobbies, and you will be much more convincing if you can truthfully say that you recently attended a coin-collectors convention. If your prospective new boss is a coin collector, this will also help you a lot at your workplace. Bosses like to promote employees who have hobbies compatible with their own."

---"I don't know of any New Yorker who doesn't have a love-hate relationship with their landlord. The first of the month is the day of each month when all New Yorkers intensely dislike their landlord. The first of the month is when New Yorkers are staring with shocked astonishment at the total amount due that appears on their computer screen!"

---"Are you being fully honest when you refer to it as a love-hate relationship with your landlord? When was the last time you stated to anyone that you love your landlord? Was that during National Love Your Landlord Day, assuming there is an annual day of that type?"

--"I would like to invite my landlord to have lunch with me, but I sense that if the other tenants see the two of us heading toward a restaurant, they will accuse me of trying to bribe my landlord into giving me a discount rate on my rent. New Yorkers are the most alert people in the entire world, when it comes to developing conspiracy theories!"

---"Personally, I try to score points with my landlord by filing reports with NYPD every time I hear a car alarm go off near my apartment unit. There's always the remote chance that the car alarm that went off was for a vehicle owned by a member of my apartment complex management team!"

---"I thought of inviting a police officer to lunch, as a way of showing support for law-enforcement. But then I had to decide which officer to invite. Maybe I should pick an officer's name at random. Or maybe I should go online to find out which officer most resembles Detective Olivia Benson. That's the one I should invite to lunch. It would be fascinating to talk with a successful NYPD detective over lunch about how to myself avoid turning into special victims case here in New York!"

---"Every time I read about the latest heart attack sustained by a New Yorker, I immediately wonder if they had an addiction to cheesecake. I would estimate that half of our city's residents are cheesecake addicts. I am always hopeful, though, that some columnist like Jane Brody will publicize a new recipe for cheesecake that is actually good for your cardiovascular health!"

--"I don't feel I'm being ruthless when I exclude from my social life anyone who says they are 420-friendly. Since all my friends avoid marijuana like the plague, I never have to worry about a friend of mine handing me a marijuana-laced brownie at a party. This means I have a ZERO percent chance of turning into a pothead here in Manhattan!"

---"Do you ever wonder why there's no public statue on display here that depicts the Indians accepting payment from the Dutch for ownership rights to Manhattan Island? To me, that would make a nice tourist site. And it could highlight everyone with a smile on their face, a nice example of Indians and white settlers interacting very harmoniously."

--"So when is the annual Dutch Day here? It would give me a perfect excuse for eating Dutch-style food once per year. To me, eating a Dutch meal is the least I can do to thank the Dutch Government for founding New York. Or maybe I should go online and send a thank-you note to the Prime Minister of The Netherlands, expressing gratitude for the contributions his country made toward New York coming into being."

--"Do you know how the total number of square miles that Manhattan Island occupies today compared with the size of our island in the 1900s or 1800s or 1700s? It's one of those questions that all too many New Yorkers overlook. Did your island get bigger or smaller with time?"

--"Maybe we should ask a Dutch consulting firm to help us build dikes that will increase the size of Manhattan Island. That strategy worked for the Dutch in their country, so maybe it will work here, too. The real estate developers will be ecstatic if they can add a square mile of additional territory to the total size of Manhattan Island! Think of all the new condo units that could add to our real-estate scene!"