MORE IMAGINARY NOTES FROM NEW YORK, HAD I BEEN THERE AT THE TIME TO EAVESDROP ON CONVERSATIONS IN PUBLIC PLACES

 

---"Maybe they should award a double Nobel Prize to the first ones to develop a successful vaccine for COVID-19. The categories could be World Peace AND Medicine. It might be first time that two Nobel Peace Prizes get awarded to the same medical researchers."

---"That British Baking show on the Food Channel makes me determined to find a British Bakery here in Manhattan that is up to their standards. Maybe I should call the British Embassy in New York to ask for a recommendation on a British bakery here---assuming they would be willing to talk to a private citizen born in the U.S. like myself."

---"My friends tell me they get great referrals from calling embassies of foreign countries here. All the embassies expect New Yorkers to be presumptuous, hyper-assertive, and audacious, so they're prepared for all of our questions."

---"If anything happens to you during the COVID-19 crisis, I will publicly blame your father and mother for subjecting you to tobacco smoke inside your childhood home. It was your parents who got you hooked on tobacco at an early age, and I will make a point of blaming them by name at the memorial service for you. Had it not been for your lungs being ruined by tobacco, your chances of surviving the pandemic would have been 100 percent better."

---"My best friend is so obsessed with Hollywood celebrities that she swears she is completely sure that the Hudson River was named after Rock Hudson. I have to point out to her that the Hudson River was named long before Rock Hudson was born. She always replies that history is of little interest to her, it complicates her life whenever she encounters historical trivia of that type, she says."

--"I find it tragic that I cannot remember any thoroughfare here in New York that refers to World Peace.  Why have a United Nations headquarters here in Manhattan if we can't even offer visitors to our city a World Peace Way or World Peace Avenue?"

---"Maybe 'The New York Times' should offer a daily quiz on the final page of each issue that's focused on the most noteworthy points I should have gleaned from that issue. If I took that daily quiz every day, I might someday earn a B-plus in my NYT comprehension skills."

---"Every time I shop in the supermarket, I get this conspiracy theory going in my head that there's a Sodium Saturation Lobby somewhere that is bribing every food-processing company into dousing each of their products with tons of sodium. I can't figure out who the Sodium Industry Lobbyists are, though. Are they Morton's Salt Company, or someone else?"

--"Look on the bright side. With Americans nearly all sodium-saturated to the max, virtually no one is developing goiters from sodium deficiency. Maybe we should host a Goiter-Free Lifestyles Party in honor of our Sodium-Crazed Lifestyles!"

----"I have to fight for unsalted popcorn whenever I enter a movie theater. The movie theater employees are apparently ordered to over-salt everything in order to increase the chances you'll order two beverages, instead of just one."

---"I regard it as sadistic to torture someone with excessive sodium in their food as a way of pressuring them into ordering a beverage at a movie theater or restaurant."

---"I am much more of an expert at identifying fine dishes to order and eat in restaurants than I am at actually cooking fine dishes. Maybe I should hire a cooking tutor to teach me how to prepare five of my favorite dishes from our restaurant scene here without being slapped with a copyright infringement lawsuit."

--"I would love to be the founder of a non-profit group with a name such as Gourmet Chefs and Gourmet Diners Association. I not only love the idea of cooking gourmet food for myself and my friends, but I also love the idea of devouring gourmet food from other chefs on a frequent basis. It is better to praise than to be praised, and when I pig out on other chefs' delicious creations, I always heap lots of praise on them to show my appreciation."

---"I need to call the Center for the Study of Addictions at Columbia and ask if they have come up with any new addictions to pursue research projects on. In the most recent 12-month period, there must have been all kinds of very new illicit addictions that got started right here in New York, with help from all the addiction-prone residents we have here. Addiction to standing too close to others---that's one cardinal sin that many New Yorkers are guilty of. Maybe Columbia will do a research project on that societal problem here. Another new addiction to add to the list might be addiction to studying and talking about addictions. I'm sure the staff members of that center on addictions at Columbia are always at risk of going bonkers from all the talk about addictions they are forced to participate in every day of the year."

---"I was asked out on a dinner date with a staff member at the Center for the Study of Addictions, and I said 'yes' but later wished I hadn't. Throughout our entire date, he was addicted to talking about why societal malaises intrigue him. It turns out that addiction to glue-sniffing is one of his all-time favorite illegal addictions to research, so I asked him way. He said glue-sniffing has everything to do with the nose, and he has always had a special empathy toward persons who are very nasal, he said. That's one of the reasons why he owns two dogs, he said, since he loves the nasality of dogs: they sniff more passionately than any other pet he's ever raised. Then he started talking about the full range of major medical problems that glue-sniffing addicts sustain, and I lost my appetite in the middle of my eggplant."

---"I find it frightening to suddenly think to myself that we're are all on an island, after all, and the future of islands on this planet looks bleak. What response to you have to that observation of mine?"

---"Maybe there's an urgent need for a new non-fiction book entitled, 'Future of Islands on This Planet' that devotes one chapter to Manhattan as one of the most famous islands in the entire world that is endangered by the Global Warming Effect."

---"Maybe you could establish a new non-profit group named 'Endangered Islands Study Group'. You could become the treasurer of that group and hope the vault you use for storing membership dues you collect doesn't get plunged into the sea by a Global Warming Effect tidal wave."

---"I would love to join a non-profit group entitled 'Endangered Ears of New York'. I feel very strongly that the motorists here honk far louder than they have to in order to get their point across. They are determined to make me go deaf just from being a witness to their addiction to over-kill in their honking practices."

--"I agree with you that over-honking here in Manhattan causes almost as many accidents as under-honking. The motorist being honked at loudly is very unnerved by it and is seized by a sudden road rage panic attack that immediately increases the risk of a motor-vehicle accident by 50 percent."