OVERHEARD AGAIN IN MANHATTAN: IMAGINARY MOMENTS OF EAVESDROPPING IN NEW YORK CITY

---"I would love to flee from the tension and hysteria here by flying to Puerto Rico for a nice relaxing vacation. But I need to check the COVID-19 stats on Puerto Rico before I do that---assuming they are even accepting tourists from New York during this period."

---"To be from New York these days is to be judged in an advance as a likely COVID-19 carrier. It's the opposite of global prestige; it's global infamy for all of us!"

---"I'm so grateful that none of my older relatives lives in a nursing home. Their chances of surviving this pandemic are much greater away from that scene."

--"I need to find a series of videotapes featuring historians' greatest lectures on the role of pandemics in world history. If I make this degrading experience intellectually stimulating, at least I can avoid getting Alzheimer's from going brain-dead reading the latest body counts and tragic-news accounts every day."

--"I would define liking someone as thinking to myself that I hope very much they don't turn into an obituary anytime soon. That's how bleak and crassly simplistic our mindset is these days here in Manhattan."

---"So who is the world's greatest lecturer on the subject of pandemics in world history? It's probably someone at Cambridge University or Oxford University in England---just a guess on my part."

---"I find it fascinating that a man who turns 80 later this year Dr. Fauci, has breathed fresh life and fresh hope into our entire country. His generosity during troubled times reminds me of the great generosity of spirit and moral vision by Founding Father Benjamin Franklin at age 81 at the Constitutional Convention."

--"I'm very sure that when Dr. Fauci turns 80 on December 24, all of New York will want to join in on that celebration. And everyone will be wearing elaborate masks to protect Dr. Fauci and his family. Maybe they could hold the celebration in his honor in Brooklyn, since that is where he was raised."

---"My thinking is that if I can master the subject of pandemics in global history, this will help me to face the future with the full confidence that people all over the world faced something a bit like this and somehow managed to achieve an end to their own plague."

---"Maybe you could write a new non-fiction book about celebrations that occurred all over the world after each of the most severe plagues of world history finally ended. The book could feature lots of artists' sketches depicting the survivors as they finally smiled and laughed and saw a future for themselves."

--"That sounds like a great semi-fictional documentary, highlighting each of the most intriguing celebrations that occurred all over the world to rejoice in liberation from the most recent often-fatal pandemic."

---"One good-news point to make is that the pandemic is showing lots of New Yorkers who DO care about their own medical health and who DO want to live a full and creatively vital medical longevity. The COVID-19 crisis would have been even more depressing if it revealed that no one cared enough about their own or others' medical health to practice social-distancing and wear a mask."

---"When we finally do have a party celebrating the elimination of the COVID-19 threat from this planet, should it be a party in a ballroom in which everyone wears a mask to that ball? I think everyone is trying to imagine what that victory party will look like. Myself, if anyone asks me to wear a mask to a ball celebrating global liberation from the COVID-19 menace, I would want to make my mask as friendly as possible. I don't want to scare anyone during the celebration!"

--"I feel sorry for the elevator operators, since they are stuck with all those droplets in the air from people entering an elevator. The air in elevators tends to be stagnant, which could be very dangerous for the elevator operator and for his passengers."

----"I've been trying to decide which of the bad guys from the 'Batman' series I used to watch might have inflicted the COVID-19 crisis on our beloved Gotham City. Would that have been the Joker, the Penguin, or someone else?"

---"Our worldwide fixation on COVID-19 for the last several months reminds me of a medical problem that my high school biology teacher lectured us about. That was brain fatigue, Mrs. Cadwallader told us, and she abbreviated it as 'Brain Fag'. I think everyone all over our country is at dire risk of contracting Brain Fag during this pandemic."

---"I sometimes wish I could refer to my pet dog as a 'service dog' and carry that dog with me on the subway. I could then use my pet dog as a shield to block moisture droplets from the dreaded humans around us on the subway car."

---"This COVID-19 crisis has forced me to admit that after the crisis is over, I will be giving out IQ tests for Human Conscientiousness to each and every person who wants to attend a party of mine. If they fail the IQ test that matters to me, if they can't even prove they're conscientious, I will keep them off my party list. And I won't permit any party crashers. I will be very adamant about that, after this fiasco exploring infinite recklessness in human conduct that's often fatal."

---"I have sometimes fantasized about visiting West Virginia to get away from the COVID-19 tragedy. But the minute I arrive at an airport there, some FBI agent might approach me and inform me that he wants to interview me about whether I am possibly anti-American in any way that poses a concern to the FBI. The FBI has many of its top people based in West Virginia, and not everything on the FBI agenda relates to whether you're law-abiding or not. They also want to know whether you might pose a PERCEIVED threat to any particular U.S. Government official, based on a review of the content of your nocturnal dreams that some political leader didn't like."

---"I worry about all these children who aren't smiling or laughing because of COVID-19. Will they grow up without a smile on their face or the ability to laugh? Hollywood may have to drop comedies from their repertoire, since the younger generation will have no knowledge of what humor or comedies are about. The only genre they know are tragedies."

---"Maybe they should re-design nursing homes to make them safer for the next crisis we have from a pandemic. If Joe Biden were President, he might authorize a special commission to study how to re-design nursing homes to make them healthier and safer and more vibrant places for senior citizens living there and the staff members working there."

---"Nothing like a crisis to enhance your enjoyment of life's simple pleasures. For me, that includes dill mustard---my favorite flavor of mustard---and Jasmine-flavored Green Tea, which I brew into a pitcher and then put the pitcher in my refrigerator so it's always cool when I actually drink it. The Jasmine Green Tea bags come from London, so it's a way to shake hands with the English---who do account for the majority of my own ancestry. I like the way Queen Elizabeth II dresses cheerfully during this COVID-19 crisis. I have to give her dress designer high marks, not that I know who her dress designer is."

--"I find it wonderful to look at my pet dog inside my home and know for a fact that she will NEVER be a COVID-19 carrier. It makes her seem so wonderfully angelic whenever I think about her NEVER being a carrier---never a threat to my own medical health, even when she licks me on the face whenever she greets me."