THE WIT AND WISDOM OF NEW YORKERS, CONTINUED: AN IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT FROM APRIL 2020

--"The COVID-19 crisis has dramatized discrimination against pedestrians by American society and our government. If you are a pedestrian and you want to order a meal from a restaurant here, what options do you have? They're slim to none. But if you have a car you can get in the drive-through lane and have no difficulty ordering from a fast-food restaurant here."

--"At least this crisis has given me something to write about in my daily diary entries. I keep notes on the time and place where anyone coughed at me, and I put that in my diary every night before I go to bed. My hope is that if I acknowledge a threat to my immune system that was perpetrated by a stranger when I stood in front of my apartment building, this will program my body to fight back internally during my sleep and thwart any and all viral threats from the most recent 24-hour period."

--"It's nice to have this one period of my life when no one is calling me paranoid. Usually that's what everyone calls me, either that or 'very neurotic'. It would be impossible to be paranoid under these circumstances. The enemy is all around you, in the form of invisible droplets of moisture."

---"Instead of greeting other New Yorkers with a 'hello', my first words to them are: 'Are you a viral threat?' Then if they say no, they usually add out of politeness that they don't have any symptoms. I find my blood pressure goes down a bit when they say that. But I always make sure I'm at least 10 feet from them throughout our entire conversation. I try to go beyond government guidelines, since I've seen some guys here whose spit travels longer than six feet when they're talking. I think we have more World Spitting-Distance Champions right here in New York than anyplace else in the entire world. I think they see it as proof of their machismo, that they can spit farther than anyone else when they're talking to you in person."

---"Everyone is telling me I should fall asleep on my stomach, which is supposed to give me more oxygen during my sleep, but I can't fall asleep on my stomach. Maybe I should try listening to music that puts me to sleep as I lie on my stomach at nighttime. I used to find that Gregorian Chant music from the Baroque era was very successful at putting me to sleep, so maybe I should try that while lying on my stomach."

--"This is sure turning into a Dog Days of Spring experience for me. When I get home, my dog comes up and licks me, and that is the ONLY physical contact with a living being that I have all day. It's fortunate that I own a poodle, and she is very well-mannered compared to most dogs here."

--"Everyone looks at me as if I were a suspect,  and it feels a bit like being accused of a crime I didn't commit. I don't even have a criminal-conviction record, but everyone is looking at me like they see me as a potential perpetrator. If my face wrinkles up like I'm going to sneeze, the people around me will recoil in horror. Then when no sneeze occurs, their look of horror suddenly goes away--but only for a second or two."

--"Riding a subway these days is like going on a roller coaster ride in which you are never quite sure you will get out of it alive."'