NEW YORKERS SPEAK THEIR MINDS: AN IMAGINARY EAVESROPPER'S REPORT, HAD I BEEN THERE AT THE TIME TO DISCREETLY JOT DOWN NOTES ON WHAT THEY SAID TO EACH OTHER

 

---"Look at the bright side. Maybe some billionaire will bail our city government out, if it is legally possible for them to do that. We should have enough billionaires here in New York that one of them will come to the rescue of our city's finance department."

---"Maybe we should do a complete inventory of all the billionaires who live in New York, and then each of us could make phone calls to those billionaires to ask them to please save our city's finances with a donation to our city's finance department."

---"I don't think we should exclude millionaires from our call list for that project. Millionaires can still be helpful, even if the amount they can give is tiny compared with what the billionaires can give."

---"What we need is a catchy slogan for our Save New York City's Finances campaign. Do any of you have friends who work for an advertising agency? If they could come up with a good slogan, maybe it's just a matter of time before we hold a 'We Saved New York!' party that gets publicized all over the world."

---"This financial crisis makes me wish for a Superman to save New York, but as soon as I say that I know some feminist group will be shrieking that I made a sexist slur when I uttered the word 'Superman'. They probably would insist that I say 'Superperson' instead.'

---"One of the biggest barriers we face is lost tourism revenue. Who is going to want to visit New York during this period, when even professional tennis champion Rafa Nadel chose not to, saying it might put him at risk of contracting COVID-19 if he competed here."

---"Maybe we could target anyone who is immune to the COVID-19 virus to visit New York for a fun time. That could bring in lots of tourism dollars. But first we'd have to figure out how to identify who's immune to COVID-19 without being a carrier of the virus. Those are the ones we could target for special deals here during this period if they are willing to take a vacation in early October---a month and a half before the holiday season normally begins."

---"The fundamentalist Christians in New York who contracted COVID-19 and survived it can at least turn that into a YouTube speech that can earn them some income. They can deliver a convincing 'I was Born Again by my COVID-19 crisis' speech on YouTube that will go viral, so to speak."

---"One advantage to the COVID-19 crisis is that it makes me appreciate alternatives to alcohol. Whenever they drink alcohol in a bar or nightclub here, I can almost see the saliva and air droplets coming out of their mouth. When they drink iced tea, they're not as likely to slobber all over the place. I'm sure that saliva-studies experts would back me up on that."

---"I'm surprised I haven't seen any televised interview with a Saliva Studies Expert during this period. Maybe some university or research institute will hire a Saliva Studies Analyst and some media company here will be the first to interview that expert."

---"Maybe some cartoonist will come up with a COVID-19-fighting heroic character who saves the world from the pandemic. This will help to keep all our children optimistic that we can all soon liberate ourselves from COVID-19 so the world returns to normal again."

--"Everyone else feels especially sorry for the senior citizens during this period. Personally, I sympathize the most with our city's young children. They aren't smiling as much as they used to, and that is very harmful to their emotional health."

--"I get sickened by the YouTube videos of persons who are dying of COVID-19 and want to make a final statement to the world about it. They want everyone to know that they loved someone before they turn into a dead body. Watching those types of videos is a bit like watching a very sadistic and violent and flagrantly-illegal snuff movie, except that with COVID, you can't be sure who allegedly murdered them with saliva, and with snuff movies, the victim is not even given a chance to talk about who they loved the most before they're brutally murdered. Either way, I'm appalled by the very degrading circumstances to which very decent human beings are subjected against their wishes."