A SEMI-FICTIONAL REPORT ON WHAT NEW YORKERS ARE SAYING: AN IMAGINARY EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT FROM MANHATTAN

 ---"I'm worried that the Global Warming Effect could dry up the springs that I rely on so heavily for my bottled water. I don't know of anything I drink all day that I enjoy more than my bottled water. If those springs are ruined by the Global Warming Effect, what am I supposed to do? Pay someone to desalinize seawater and make it taste like spring water?"

---"If the Global Warming Effect destroys the natural springs everywhere, my ability to delight in the pristine and virginal will be completely shot to hell. I had looked upon the natural springs that offer me my bottled water as the one last unspoiled paradise on our entire planet. Now that entire fantasy of mine is being threatened, all because of the Global Warming Effect, and it's very demoralizing."

---"I don't like to think how many friends I've lost because of COVID. I'm not referring to the ones who died. I'm referring to the ones I lost all confidence in because they refused to get vaccinated.  Their callousness toward others is so appalling that I don't even want to be seen with them in public."

---"No one wants to be seen associating with an anti-vaccine activist. I stay away from them like the plague."

---"With my luck, I'll probably find out tomorrow that the coworker I share a cubicle with in my office job is a leader of the never-get-vaccinated movement. I might ask my boss to transfer me to a different cubicle if I find out that the one I share a cubicle with right now has refused to get vaccinated."

---"You need to develop a strategy for finding out whether the coworker you share a cubicle with has refused to get vaccinated. Maybe you could comment to her that Dr. Fauci has really impressed you, then see how she reacts. If she criticizes Dr. Fauci, that proves to you that she has refused to get vaccinated."

--"Don't look upon it as a current crisis. Look upon it as a relatively calm rehearsal for an even more traumatizing and 500 percent more severe pandemic we will soon be having here. Welcome to New York, where you are guaranteed of losing sleep every night from crisis-of-the-day dramas you can't avoid. Your biggest consolation is that 50 years from now, New Yorkers will be commenting on how easy you and your contemporaries had it compared to what they're facing."

---"I miss all the gossip I used to get from going out to lunch with coworkers. It used to be a lot of fun to hear coworkers ridicule our boss over lunch inside a restaurant with a good acoustical system that lends itself to conversation. Office gossip these days is so rare that it feels like being inside a church. I haven't even heard any slanderous nicknames for any of our bosses these days, we're so mired in survivalism right now."

---"Your aunt picks up a tennis racquet once per year, and only after all the professional tennis matches at the U.S. Open have ended. I am trying to convince her to consider playing tennis when there's no U.S. Open context to her rallies on a court."

---"To me, the safest company to invest in right now must be Pfizer. Everyone in the world needs to get vaccinated, so Pfizer is guaranteed of a huge worldwide market. How many shares of Pfizer do you think I should buy?"

---"I need to obtain a map of New York City that highlights each and every property here that has been purchased by an investor in mainland China. I think it will completely change my outlook on New York after I have reviewed that map."

---"Personally, I would like to review a map of New York City that highlights each and every property here that's been purchased by a Russian investor. I would assume that properties near the Russian Tea Room would be coveted by Russian investors, but that's just guessing on my part."

---"I would like to attend a social event for members of the Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights group. I don't even know who the other members are who live here in Manhattan. They're obviously among the wisest and most incisive people in our entire city. Maybe I could come up with a theme for a social party designed to appeal only to members of that non-profit group headquartered in Berkeley."

---"I told my son Harold that he needs to write a report on air pollution here for his high school class on Environmental Studies. Harold could make that an oral report in which he stands in front of the entire class and tells them whether the chances of their lungs being ruined just by living here have declined, increased, or remained about the same compared with 10 or 20 or 50 or 100 years ago."

--"I would love to find a book about moments of United Nations history in which a mistake in a translation of an ambassador's speech nearly led to a fist-fight in the General Assembly. It sounds callous of me to say, I realize. But I am actually very concerned that major conflicts among countries can result from errors by professionally trained translators who work at the UN. Maybe some of those translators are double-agents actually paid by a third country seeking to trigger a conflict between rival countries."

--"Whenever you run into someone at the subway station who looks like a foreign citizen, always treat them with respect. If they work for the United Nations, they will be kinder toward the USA if they think that American citizens respect and admire them."

---"I used to host dinner parties to prove to everyone that I'm not misanthropic. Today, though, I prove I'm not misanthropic through my contact-less personal website. I am posting favorite recipes of mine and inviting everyone to bake that or grill that themselves."

---"It's odd, but I have never seen a 'United Nations Magazine'. I would want to get that online, since I already have too many magazines lying around in my living room. If you live in New York, you should definitely become an expert on the United Nations."

---"My sister is a big fan of fictional TV shows and fictional movies, so I plan to buy her a fully up-to-date reference book that will give her all the info she craves about all the places from the most recent 100-year period that were highlighted by or that served as a site for a TV production or movie with a New York theme or setting."

---"Your friend is so meticulous about having good manners at all times that if he wins the lottery in this state, the first thing he will do is to sit down with a fountain pen or ballpoint pen and write a thank-you letter to the executive director of the New York Lottery."

---"The scandal involving Governor Cuomo has made everyone determined to keep notes on everything they ever say or do to any female person they ever encounter at any time. It is very exhausting to jot down those legal notes all the time, the 'Save My Ass' notes as I call them. But I need to always  protect my legal position if any of those ladies I happen to have conversations with or send e-mails to ever contacts the 'Daily News' and claims that I had harassed her."