A JANUARY 2019 FICTIONAL EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT FROM NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: WHAT THEY COULD HAVE SAID IN MANHATTAN, AS IMAGINED BY A FORMER BOSTONIAN

---"I get tired of calling myself a New Yorker. What about a NeoYorker, for something different? I'm a Neo-Conservative, and I love to refer to myself with 'neo' as often as I can."

---"Would you please explain to me again the difference between a conservative and a neo-conservative here in Manhattan?"

---"Lisa defines 'conservative' as a well-dressed male adult New Yorker who declines to participate in bestiality."

--"Are you suggesting that a neo-conservative New Yorker, by contrast, is willing to experiment with bestiality?"

---"If I land a brain-friendly job at a Think Tank here, this should reduce my risk of contracting Alzheimer's by 20 percent. I'm very strategic that way in my career pursuits. I want whichever career is most likely to offer me an insurance policy against contracting Alzheimer's."

--"You are the first person I've spoken with who uses the term 'brain-friendly'. Who knows? Maybe you'll get cited in a dictionary someday as the New Yorker who came up with that new vocabulary word for our city."

---"To me, the ideal job would be as Founder and President of a New York Think Tanks Association. Our group would provide consulting services to each of the think-tank employers of  this city. One of those services would be to offer recommendations on which high-protein snack foods offer the most effect brainpower boost to think-tank employees. We would be promoting munching on almonds to each of our members. We could even purchase almonds wholesale and distribute them to each of our Think Tank members for a fee."

---"Is there a New York Times Crossword Puzzlers Club here? When I moved to New York, I just assumed I would find a civic group like that which holds weekly meetings. I would love to join, since doing New York Times Crossword Puzzles is a passion of mine."

---"Are you completely sure that New Yorkers who pursue crossword puzzles for a hobby are referred to as 'crossword puzzlers'?"

--"I need to consult my Oxford English Dictionary to find out whether it lists a compound noun 'crossword puzzler' in that dictionary. If not, maybe I could get credit for coining that term."

---"I've noticed recently that John McEnroe in his televised tennis matches looks like he might be a recovering cancer victim. His hair has turned gray, he looks pale, and he appears to have lost weight. Has the American Cancer Society chapter here considered asking him to do a public-service announcement about the risks of eating or drinking or smoking whatever it is he ate or drank or smoked that may have given him cancer?"

---"To me, the fact that John McEnroe is shown on television competing in what they call 'Legends' matches proves that he IS NOT on chemotherapy. I am fairly sure that if he WERE a cancer victim, he would have to get chemotherapy on a regular basis. And there is no way he could do that and still play well at Legends tennis tournaments several times per year."

--"You make a good point, since anyone on chemo is likely to vomit if they try to compete in a tennis tournament. I have never seen John McEnroe vomiting during any of his televised tennis matches in recent years. It is possible, though, that McEnroe during his younger days did vomit on the court as his immediate reaction after he lost to a player he despised, such as Jimmy Connors."

--"I find it odd that McEnroe and Connors hated each other so much. Both are Irish-Americans, aren't they? They both probably believe very strongly that St. Patrick's Day is a favorite holiday of theirs, and they both feel very grateful to St. Patrick for keeping snakes away from Ireland. That's common ground that they don't share with Ivan Lendl, for instance."

--"If he does have cancer, it would make for a great public-service announcement if John McEnroe appears at a tennis court while wearing tennis shorts, and tells the entire world that he himself lost 0-6, 0-6, 0-6 to cancer, and he urges everyone else to avoid getting trounced by that dreaded disease. He could save millions of lives per year from the dramatic impact of that type of TV ad for the American Cancer Society. Everyone who watches it would stop smoking. But this assumes he is a smoker, when it's unlikely that he is, since he would have been gasping or wheezing between points if he were a smoker."

--"It's entirely possible that McEnroe is one of those cases of professional tennis players who contracted skin cancer and refused to publicly admit it. These professional tennis players spend half of their lives outdoors in the sun. Their risk of getting skin cancer is much higher than for most other New Yorkers. But if they apply sunscreen lotions to their skin, maybe their risk of getting skin cancer could be lower than most New Yorkers, since most of us don't do that. Plus, I would assume that those tennis players as part of their contracts with their association automatically get tested for skin cancer once every six months by a first-rate professional tennis association-employed dermatologist, which is a life-saver for them."

---"It's odd how we think of John McEnroe as synonymous with New York, but I still haven't figured out which borough claims him as their own."

---"You will probably find out the answer to that someday when you learn that a memorial service is being held, to be followed by burial in a cited The borough in which McEnroe gets buried 20 years from now is the one he obviously felt the closest to. This is assuming he doesn't select an upstate cemetery, or ask to be buried at Newport, Rhode Island. There may well be a lot of pressure on him to get buried at Newport, since that's where the Tennis Hall of Fame is located. However, his relatives in New York would probably want to keep his tomb in the Empire State. It would be a matter of family pride for them that McEnroe stays in New York, no matter what, so Rhode Island doesn't get him."

---"Odd that I have never met Mrs. McEnroe, John's wife. She is probably a first-rate tennis player, but she is very low-key about it. I wonder why she chose to keep her married life with John a complete secret to the rest of New York?"