HAD I BEEN IN NEW YORK CITY TODAY, I FEEL SURE THAT I WOULD HAVE OVERHEARD THE FOLLOWING COMMENTS:

---"I find it very odd that you don't know exactly how many miles long Long Island is. To me, any educated person should be able to tell me immediately and in very specific terms exactly how long is Long Island."

---"Are you suggesting that I'm negligent for not enrolling in a course at NYU on the Geography of Long Island?"

--"Speaking of length, can you tell me the name of the longest public beach on Long Island? If you don't know the answer to that question, this proves to me that you are hopelessly ignorant."

---"The other day I was 100 percent sure I saw a famous name type standing along Avenue of the Americas. But then I hit a complete blank. I felt sure I had seen him on a comedy TV series, but I could not recall the series. I wanted to go up to him and say, 'So tell me the name of your series.'"

--"That would be a huge mistake. He might be a serial killer who feels guilty about it, and he replies defensively by shouting at me: 'You're CRAZY if you think I'll tell you the names in my series of victims! So keep your big mouth shut or I'll add you to my list!"

--"Can you imagine being a priest here in New York these days. You show up in church to take a confession, then the guy asks you if you have enough time available to listen to him confess to more than one murder?"

--"That reminds me. I myself have never heard of any priest here who, based on a confession he got from a member of his church, provided NYPD with a crime tip that led to the arrest of a serial killer. If there is a priest who did that, it could make for a great Hollywood movie, with the priest as the obvious hero in that movie!"

---"If I were a priest, I might ask anyone who confesses to being a serial killer whether any of his victims as of that time had been priests. If I get 'no' for an answer, I would find that reassuring. But if he instead replies with, 'No, Father, and if I ever do add a priest to my list, you will be the first to know about it,' I would lose sleep at night trying to figure out if his comment had been a thinly veiled death threat against me. Was he insinuating that I would be right there at the scene of the crime, as the intended murder victim? Or was he indicating that I would somehow be an eyewitness to this serial killer's murder of someone else and then be expected by the killer to remain silent about what I had just seen? This is what would torment me all night as I lie alone on my bed trying to get the 8 hours of sleep I need for conducting Mass the next day."

---"What I need is not an efficiency apartment, but a mini-efficiency or ultra-mini-efficiency. This would keep my heating and cooling bill as low as possible. Do you know of any realtor who specializes in helping New Yorkers to find a mini-efficiency less than 200 square feet in size that they can then call their home sweet home?"

--"What you're describing sounds more like a jail cell than anyplace where a free human being would actually want to live. Possibly you could make a deal with a jail superintendent so you could pay for temporary housing at his jail during slow periods there. The only disadvantage would be that you would find your neighbors to be a lot rougher and meaner than you would want. They would resent you for having a key to your own rental unit, and they would also resent you for being able to leave your jail cell any time of
 the day or night that you like."

--"I don't see how you can find the space for a bathtub or shower if your home-sweet-home mini-efficiency is only 200 square feet.  So how do you plan to clean yourself in the morning as you prepare to head off to your workplace in Manhattan? Do you plan to use sanitizer wipes to clean your underarms and genitals each morning at 6 a.m.? Do you really think you'd fool your boss into believing that you had taken a shower, if you did that?"

---"One big advantage to a mini-efficiency is that I can't do much damage if I sleep-walk while unconscious at nighttime. I wouldn't have enough space in my apartment for valuable fragile items such as vases or statues, so I couldn't possibly bump into something that is breakable. The most I could bump into would be my refrigerator. But since it's a mini-efficiency, my refrigerator would be so tiny that that type of very minor collision wouldn't do any damage."

---"You remind me that I need to start up a new magazine here entitled 'Mini-Efficiency Lifestyles of Manhattan'. I feel sure I could make a million from a publishing venture like that. It would offer invaluable tips on how to make the most of every square inch, or every square centimeter, of their rental unit. My magazine would praise bonsai gardening, for instance, since bonsai plants take up less space. They are dwarfs, and they are also very attractive."

--"Personally, I'd rather organize a Mini-Efficiency Tenants Union here in Manhattan that champions the consumer rights and legal rights of New Yorkers who reside in an efficiency unit that's less than 300 square feet in size. It would be very trendy, and pretty soon Philadelphia or Boston would copy us with a similar tenants union exclusively for mini-efficiency tenants."

--"I love the idea of an annual tradition of an Indoor Bonsai Gardening show here in New York that offers New Yorkers a chance to find an indoor plant that will actually fit inside their apartment unit. This is one way in which New York can benefit from a cultural trend that Tokyo has already excelled at."

---"Every time I attend the grand opening of yet another new restaurant here in New York, I am asking myself just how many months will this one last? If I enjoy the food there, I try to tell all my friends and coworkers and relatives and neighbors about the place. My goal is to help prevent a doomsday scenario for that new restaurant. This is how I would define philanthropy as a New Yorker. I try to help influence other consumers' opinions toward adoring each of the restaurants that I enjoy the most. It's enlightened self-interest, since I would be very upset if any fave of mine suddenly closes down on me."

--"I get so devastated whenever a favorite restaurant of mine closes down that I sometimes host a Memorial Service in honor of that restaurant. I will attempt to replicate the foods and beverages of that restaurant  and serve them to all guests at the Memorial Service event. Each person attending the event would be invited to stand up in front of the group and say what he loved the most about that now-deceased eatery, what their favorite entree was there, and who their favorite waiter or waitress or manager there was."

--"I'm so grateful I have finally found the right underarm deodorant product for myself. It's 'Irish Spring' deodorant from Speed Stick. What's nice about Irish Spring is that it gives the message to everyone that I'm celebrating the spring season in Ireland on a year-round basis, so I'm naturally very cheerful and lucky at all times. I've got the Luck of the Irish in me, you might say. This is the subliminal statement that my body fragrance gives off to anyone who stands near me while I'm waiting for the subway. This is especially helpful in January,  when I'm trying to figure out why I didn't study negative numbers during my elementary-school years. It's either minus 7 degrees outside or minus 15 degrees outside, and all of that is new material to me as an adult, since my math teacher in elementary school never taught me about negative temperatures in everyday mathematics. I don't remember my math classes after elementary school, so I'm not sure whether negative numbers were ever taught to me during my post-elementary school years, as I call them."