A SEMI-FICTIONAL EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT: WHAT THE NEW YORKERS ARE SAYING EITHER THIS YEAR OR NEXT YEAR

 ---"Whenever I say 'Are you New to New York?', it feels so redundant. I have figured out an alternative way to phrase my question. My alternative questions is: 'So how many weeks have you been living here?'"

---"I don't know whether there is a memorial anywhere on Long Island for that plane flight in 1996 that crashed nearby with 16 members of a French club at a Pennsylvania high school onboard. There should be a historic marker along the shore that everyone can study up close to remember that awful tragedy."

---"Look on the bright side. If you do succumb to COVID-19 here, there are lots of sea animals closeby who will be delighted  to devour your ashes after they're dumped into the ocean. If you're lucky, a dolphin will be the one to devour your ashes after your urn's contents are scattered here---assuming you die of COVID anytime soon. I think most of us who specify having our ashes scattered into the ocean like to think of a dolphin devouring us at that point. But there's also the alternative that some form of botanical plant life in the sea will eat your ashes. Since you're a vegetarian, I'm sure you'd like to turn into plant food after you die here from COVID. But it's better, of course, if you can survive the COVID crisis in order to dedicate the rest of your life to writing books about how grateful you are to be alive."

---"Sooner or later there will be a life theater play here featuring a long line of characters who do very abrupt vanishing acts after each declares loudly on stage that they refuse to get vaccinated. It will definitely be a  tragedy, but unfortunately, someone in the audience will be inviting a fight by clapping and cheering whenever an unvaccinated character gets killed by COVID. That member of the audience will shout loudly that their refusal to get vaccinated cost them their life, and they also infected dozens of other New Yorkers before their life story turned into an obituary."

---"I wish the obituary writers for The Times would add the factual statement for each COVID-19 victim who had refused to get vaccinated that 'it is believed that the deceased infected 200 other persons with the often-fatal  COVID-19 virus."

---"How tragic that the persons infected by the deceased can't file a lawsuit against him or her. Maybe they can sue the estate of the deceased in which they prove to a judge and jury that the deceased was maskless and standing a few feet from the plaintiff a matter of hours before the plaintiff was diagnosed as having contracted COVID-19."

---"It would make a great legal precedent here in New York if someone can win a lawsuit against a COVID-19 victim's estate. Maybe there's a need for a COVID-19 SUE THE INFECTOR'S ESTATE SOCIETY."

---"I have some great ideas for new words to add to the English language, but I can't find a dictionary publisher willing to add the words I invented on my own. Do you have any dictionary publisher friends I could invite to lunch, assuming that both of us are fully vaccinated and can prove it at the entrance to that restaurant?"

--"I don't understand why you are determined to add a new word to the English language. Are you afraid that no one will remember you in the year 2060 without a new word that jogs everyone's memory into recalling that you were here and you made a cultural contribution?"

---"And even if you do get a new word added to some dictionary here in New York, do you really think that anyone is going to actually use that word more than once per year, at most?"

--"I don't regard it as racist to find out what percentage of the schoolchildren of New York say they were bullied by a black schoolmate. It's the type of story that the liberal news media organizations tend to ignore, and that oversight borders on treason."

---"I don't know anyone in this city who doesn't have nightmares about a foreign country at the United Nations sending a spy to their home who attempts to kidnap them. I think everyone senses that at least one of the member nations of the UN would regard them as being a threat to that foreign government."

---"You need to keep in mind that if you do visit Ireland, you need to be very low-key about your alcohol-free lifestyle there. The Irish don't trust anyone who is always sober at all times."

---"Maybe you should ask for a tour of Scotland Yard headquarters if you visit England. You could explain to your British tour guide that you have repeatedly asked Scotland Yard to help you solve a crime case in the USA in which you were the victim during your sleeping hours. So it's not as if you are a complete stranger to Scotland Yard. They might  treat you to some Scottish shortbread if you visit their headquarters and offer to make a donation to some non-profit crime-prevention fund that is administered by Scotland Yard."

---"I don't even know what Palestinian Americans look like, but it's likely that New York City has as many Palestinian-Americans as any other U.S. city. Of course it makes sense to have at least one Palestinian-American friend here who opposes violent conduct in the Middle East."

---"It's odd how I don't associate Palestinian-Americans with any particular cuisine. It's not as if they have any counterpart to a bagel I could cite as a leading cultural symbol for them."

--"I agree that dehumanization of Palestinian-Americans is deplorably widespread. If we could at least celebrate their finest culinary dishes one day per year, this might help us to better acknowledge their humanity."

---"If I do agree to eat shortbread during a trip to England or Scotland, I need to insist that it's a high-fiber shortbread with as little saturated fat as possible. But how can I make that point in England or Scotland without offending them? The English and Scottish are very proud of their culinary heritage, and they might not be sympathetic if I explain that I'm under doctor's orders from my cardiologist to insist on high-fiber shortbread with as little sodium and saturated fat as possible. But there's also the chance that they might be understanding about my cardiologist's concerns."

---"The United States is so overdosed with racism talk and racism allegations that if I visit the White Cliffs at Dover and send a photo-illustrated postcard to a friend or relative of mine in the States, some black male Postal Service employee will probably photograph my postcard and post it on Facebook as an example of how white people try to flee from black people."

---"Whenever I open the door to a taxi and get in, I want to be able to immediately see the driving record of the taxi driver from the most recent five year period before I agree to let him transport me anywhere. If the driver has been in more than one accident in the most recent five-year period, I would not feel comfortable about his driving me anywhere."

---"You are always curious about who your neighbors are here, but it pays to be very low-key if you have any concerns about their background. You don't want to invite retaliation."

---"Even if only one percent of the other tenants at your apartment complex here are persons you would trust enough to invite them to visit you in your unit, that is a higher percentage than most New Yorkers would permit. Not trusting your neighbor is conventional wisdom here."

---"If New York City were put in charge of revising the Bible, the commandment about loving they neighbor would get changed to "NEVER LOVE THY NEIGHBOR UNLESS YOU HAVE GOTTEN TO KNOW THEM FOR AT LEAST 12 CONSECUTIVE MONTHS AND YOU ARE COMPLETELY SURE THAT THEY ACTUALLY PASSED A CRIMINAL BACKGROUND CHECK YOU DID ON THEM."

---"I need to do an investigation to find out the percentage of all the Anglo New Yorkers who are getting denied when they request an in-person meeting with our African-American new mayor inside his mayor's office."

---"I would be enraged if I had a meeting with our new Mayor only to hear him at the very end order a staff member of his to place notes about that two-person meeting in the 'PERSONS OF NO COLOR FILE'."

---"I'm almost afraid to find out the name of the favorite restaurant of our new Mayor. He is under very heavy political pressure to promote black-owned and black-operated restaurants, so the odds are high that the favorite restaurant he cites will have a staff more familiar with chitterlings than caviar. But is it fair for our mayor to neglect the many fine restaurants where the cuisine happens to be northern European in inspiration?"

--"You have to be very careful when you have a conversation with our new Mayor. If you tell him that the public-policy issue you've identified is very complicated, and is 'not a black or white issue', he might balk at that phrasing."

---"Things have gotten so politicized these days that even the pet dog of the mayor is probably expected to have lots of black fur on that animal in order to meet the expectations of the voters who got our new mayor elected. There is probably a 'Black Fur is Beautiful' or 'Black Fur Matters' campaign going on somewhere in New York that urges all African-Americans to only adopt as pets dogs that have at least 10 percent of their fur dark black in color."

---"I meet so many immigrants here that I have gotten tired of saying 'Good Luck on your goal of becoming a U.S. citizen'. Maybe I should say something like, 'I'm sure you know that if you develop a reputation for being law-abiding and honest and calling 911 frequently in order to help out others, your chances of getting granted citizenship here are 10 times better.'"

---"One thing I plan to ask our New mayor in person is whether he has said no to cocaine anytime recently. He may find the question offensive, but I am very determined to be one New Yorker who refuses to let the mayor's office turn into a Disciples of Marion Barry Society. We all know how disastrous the D.C. Mayor was, and no one wants to see that happen here."

---"I wish I had asked during the campaign whether Eric Adams was a close personal friend of Marion Barry, and if so, did Marion Barry ever invite Eric Adams to attend a crack cocaine party?"

---"It would be very tragic if the late Marion Barry of D.C. could somehow trigger a posthumous cocaine scandal that hurts Eric Adams's chances of getting elected in November."

---"The kind of book author I don't want to meet here is someone who never cites anyone to praise on a Dedication Page in the books they write. They are so ungrateful they don't even offer a Dedication Page explaining who the book is dedicated to, and why. I am very uncomfortable around ungrateful people."

---"I agree with you that I don't trust the published authors here who either refuse to offer a Dedication Page in the books they write or only offer what appears to be very minimal and very faint praise for someone in their Very pro-forma Dedication Page."

---"I am one book lover here who actually memorizes the contents of the Dedication Pages of the books I read. I would love to host a party honoring the authors whose Dedication Pages impressed me the most as being very sincere and very appreciative and very heartfelt. Dedication Pages uphold a tradition of sentimentality that is sorely needed in this city where cynicism and Anti-sentimental Chic plague our entire city."

--"If there were a condominium complex here where only published book authors could reside as condo owners, that complex would get immediately slapped with a lawsuit alleging that minorities were discriminated against because minorities historically are less likely to get a book published than are Anglo New Yorkers."