MORE FROM MANHATTAN: THE CONVERSATIONS OF NEW YORKERS I MIGHT HAVE EAVESDROPPED ON, HAD I BEEN THERE AT THE TIME

 

---"Drinking green tea is like a religion to me. I bathe my tongue and mouth in it as often as I can."

---"Maybe I could establish a new non-profit with a name such as Platonic Love Society. It would help to refute the view of millions of Americans that platonic love is impossible to achieve, and that the only kind of love they believe in features a daily or weekly orgasm experience."

--"I agree with you that New Yorkers are oversexed. Whenever I enter a subway car, half the time I am thinking the ladies and  gentleman there are hoping to land a date while riding the subway. I can tell from how they dress and how they act on the subway car. My advice that I always give to my friends is to NEVER confuse a subway car for a dating service."

----"I still recommend having as many virtual meetings as possible with your friends until this COVID crisis is completely over. Ten years from now, you and your friends can all throw a 'We Survived Covid' party to celebrate."

---"I think I notice their tone of voice more than I used to, since my off-duty conversations are more on the phone than in person. A slight change in their tone of voice tells me a lot."

---"I think I delay paying my bills in order to guarantee that I'll get some phone calls. If I paid all my bills on time, no one would ever call me."

---"You shouldn't overlook the telemarketers, though. You are guaranteed of getting calls from telemarketers on a year-round basis."

---"I get so few phone calls that I still savor the very nice 2 a.m. wrong number call I got back in 1979. The gentleman caller asked me if I was the police department, and I politely explained that I was not the police department, but I was so delighted to get a phone call from a gentleman with a pleasant voice and my guard was down so I thanked him profusely for the phone call. His voice was much nicer than the types of voices I get from the bill collectors when they call me."

---"I plan to rewrite my will to give everything in my two-million-dollar estate toward establishing a new non-profit group that's exclusively devoted to prevention of home-invasion crimes. I think I'll call it the American Home-Invasion-Crimes Crime Prevention Association. Or does that sound too verbose?"

---"Personally, my idea for a new non-profit group will be something like 'Sanctity of Sleep Protection Society'. My group will protect the legal right of approved applicants for assistance to enjoy full freedom from persons breaking into their locked residence and harassing them or raping them while they're asleep. My group will also provide financial assistance to approved applicants who seek to soundproof their bedroom. I'm sure many New Yorkers get robbed of sleep every night from noise generated outside of their unit."

---"I'm so keen on tennis that I need to find a book I can add to my home library that's an anthology of the best acceptance speeches ever given by tennis champions and runners-up at professional tennis tournaments. I'm sure it would give me goosebumps to read those acceptance speeches after they're presented with their trophy or award."

--"You seem to take pride in having the largest home-library collection of tennis books of anyone in our neighborhood. Does anyone ever accuse you of being a tennis groupie?"

---"No, but I have thought of celebrating my passion for tennis by throwing a nice party to honor everyone I get along with well in our neighborhood who plays tennis. We could have the cake shaped like a giant tennis racquet."

--"Your tennis movies collection is so big that you might even want to throw a Tennis in the Cinema Festival inside your own home. Your tennis-crazed friends will be elated to attend a cultural event like that."

--"I can identify with your sentimentality toward tennis. I still savor the wonderful backhanded style of a player I rallied with 20 years ago. I loved the special elegance and spin from his backhanded shots. But of course, it was his nice personality that came across the most to me when I rallied with him that day."

---"I wish some billionaire would donate money toward financing a documentary movie or television special documentary on Home Invasion Crimes and how to prevent them. That subject is turning into an obsession with me, and I would love to watch a program like that."

---"It's deep-seated in the American psyche that a home-invasion-crimes perpetrator will ruin their day or their night. Everyone is obsessed with identifying creaking sounds they hear in the middle of the night. Plus, everyone talks about the proverbial boogyman and how to prevent him from entering their home. It's a national pastime: How to keep the undesirables and psychopaths as far away from your locked private residence as possible."

---"Maybe you should call your friend at that book publishing company and suggest that they publish a new book with a title like: 'History of the Boogyman in American Popular Culture'. I have never read about how that term originated, and I'm sure many people would also be very fascinated by that subject."

---"I think every New Yorker is subconsciously afraid that they will fall asleep and wake up 10 years later. I'm talking about the 'Legend of Sleepy Hollow' that helped to put New York on the cultural map. I can't remember how many years the guy in that play or novel was asleep, but losing many years from being in a comatose-like state is very frightening to many of us."

--"One of my favorite things to say to my friends is to simply ask them: 'Are you sure they were mean, or were they just sleep-deprived and irritable that particular day?' Here in the City That Never Sleeps, you always have to ask yourself that question before you criticize anyone for snapping at you. The odds are good that he or she only got 5 hours of sleep the night before, so they're feeling cranky and irritable."

---"This is one city where you're expected to know all of the cuisines of this entire planet. But my time is limited. If I happen to hear about a very good Albanian restaurant, I'll give full consideration to it. So far, though, I have never once eaten any Albanian dish. But here in New York, we don't have the excuse of no such restaurant being offered here."

--"You can always tell the difference between the ones who get 8 hours of sleep every night and the ones who don't. Just look at their faces, it tells you all you need to know. I would estimate that 90 percent of the restaurant employees here get a lot less than eight hours of sleep every night. The other extreme would be the medical nurses who have regular daytime hours. They are very diligent about getting eight hours of sleep per night."

---"I wish the labor unions got rated for their level of obedience of the law and respect for others' privacy. You hear so many rumors about one labor union or another being corrupt or having mob ties, and I always think of that great movie 'On the Waterfront' that featured a labor union at its worst. I will have to find someone who can help me figure out which labor unions here have the highest credibility rating and compliance with the law rating."

---"I am so elated to be a member of the Consumer Reports non-profit group here in New York that I plan to contact them and sign up for automatic payment each year on renewal of my membership. I look upon Consumer Reports as a very rational and wise and essential guide for living. The products I purchase pervasively affect my ability to have a good and healthy and happy life."

---"I agree with you about Consumer Reports, and I strongly support no-strings-attached foundation grants that protect Consumer Reports from any risk of any company or special interest group trying to bribe or corrupt any of the employees there. The future of Consumer Reports is very dependent on the greatest of continuity in their integrity rating being very, very high."