OVERHEARD DURING MY MOST RECENT VICARIOUS VISIT TO NEW YORK CITY, NEW YORK: A SEMI-FICTIONAL EAVESDROPPER'S REPORT FROM A VISIT OF MINE THAT NEVER OCCURRED

 

---"Everywhere I go, I'm hearing obscene squeezing and squirting sounds from the sanitizer mini-dispensers that everyone carries with them in their pocket. I feel sure my eardrums will be very relieved when the COVID crisis is finally over."

---"There are two types of people on this planet: the COVID-Conscientious and the COVID-Unconscionable. I happen to be a member of the former group. I am now triple-vaccinated and I plan to wear a button my shirt proclaiming that fact about myself to anyone and everyone who glances at my shirt."

---"I would define a cynical person in New York as someone who still glares at me after I tell them I'm triple-vaccinated. He should be very grateful that there is a zero percent chance he would ever catch COVID from me. Instead he just looks at me with aversion as if he resents me for being so conscientious."

---"I am so overwhelmed by all the fusion entrees being offered on the menus here that I get very confused. If I choose a Thai dish that features a partial fusion with Italian cuisine, as the menu declares, how am I supposed to know in advance that the combination will be delicious?  I have never eaten Thai-Italian food before."

---"Personally, I get dizzy when I think about the last Chinese-Hungarian-Aussie fusion dish I ordered in a restaurant here. I feel as if I'm falling off the planet when I eat a Chinse-Hungarian-Aussie dish, since I'm dizzy from flying all over the continents like that."

---"It's gotten to the point that the only dishes getting rated as culinary works of genius these days are the fusion dishes. That is a big mistake, in my opinion. Many of the non-fusion dishes are very edible, and I would even call them delicious, even though it's not trendy to defend the non-fusion dishes."

---"I do find it fun to talk with a chef who says he specializes in fusion dishes. He'll tell me that he first studied for six weeks at a culinary school in Rome, then studied for another six weeks at a culinary school in Germany, in order to produce a perfect German-Italian hybrid dish featuring sauerkraut and pasta as leading ingredients."

---"My daughter is so obsessed with fusion dishes that she recently called a Fusion Center for a law-enforcement agency and asked them what's on their menu? She didn't understand that there are two types of fusions that are occurring---some in the kitchen, some at law-enforcement agencies."

---"With all the police officers here who learn about scandals that never end up in a courtroom, maybe our publishing company should offer a generous financial incentive to a retired member of NYPD. We could ask him or her to tell the entire world about the biggest scandals from NYPD that never got publicized during their career. I'm sure the book would turn into an overnight best-seller. We would have to make the identity of the author kept completely secret, though, or otherwise their success as a best-selling author would be very short-lived, if you get my drift."

---"Everyone asks me at cocktail parties which fashion designer my wardrobe is the most influenced by. They assume I've got the money to patronize a favorite fashion designer whom I chat with every day of my life. It's not like this is Renaissance Italy and I'm from the Medici family, eager to patronize the finest artists here by throwing nuggets of gold at them. My income bracket is modest to the point of poverty-stricken. So why won't they just accept the fact that my last name is NOT Medici, and I am NOT a leading benefactor of our city's fashion designers?"

--"And even if your last name were Medici, it doesn't require you to be a patron of the arts 24 hours a day. There are probably some Medicis here who are blue-collar workers----the type of hard-nosed men who would not want to get caught dead inside an art museum."

---"My friend is so adamant about being a dues-paying member of the Berkeley-based 'Americans for Non-Smokers' Rights'  group that she has specified in her will that she refuses to be buried next to anyone who was ever a smoker after they turned age 30. I admire her idealism, but I try to reassure her that dead people can't smoke or vape, so they won't be a threat to her."

---"The clever come-backs you see in the movies could trigger a fatal injury if you tried those lines in real life here. I recommend that you hold your tongue if you are tempted to snap back at someone here in New York. Let them have the last word, and be grateful you are alive because you didn't trigger subway rage or street rage by anyone on the subway car or on the public sidewalks here."

--"With all the great Italian food that New Jersey and New York produce, maybe some non-profit group seeking to help deter Mafia activities will sponsor a 'BiState Tribute to Italy Cookbook', with proceeds from the sale of that book going back to that non-profit group. It would be a very rare example of happy harmony between New York and New Jersey."

--"I can see why people in New Jersey sometimes feel we are sneering at them. We all say 'He's gone to Jersey', but we never say 'He's gone to York'. We don't even respect New Jersey enough to state its full name in everyday conversation."

---"If the Governor of New Jersey ever loses some weight, he could make a lot of money by writing a best-selling cookbook that offers lots of heart-healthy recipes he could claim helped him to turn his life around. The before and after photographs of the New Jersey governor on the front cover of his book would be enough to sell thousands of copies of his book in the first month alone!"

---"The other day one of my coworkers shouted inside our office area that he had clocked in with road rage he had sustained an hour before as he traveled to work. I told him that no matter what he experienced on the roadways of our lovely city, he should keep in mind that his boss is NOT going to regard 'Residual Road Rage Trauma' inside the office as a reasonable excuse for his unprofessional behavior here two hours later!"

---"I like presenting the strangers I meet with zero tattoos they can comment on. This challenges them to come up with something else to say, since they can't say 'I love your tattoos!' on first meeting with me. The other day I met a gentleman who asked me if I had ever been married. I was very pleased to hear that question, since the simple answer of 'no' spared me from having to talk about anyone from my past. The people of the present are much more interesting to me, that is my personal philosophy for living. I cherish the people of today who are willing to meet with me during my leisuretime in a strictly mutual-consent context. I also admire their insightfulness and wisdom for identifying me as a good person to get to know."

---"When I meet an eligible bachelor at a party who has tattoos of five different women on his arm or upper chest that anyone can see, I immediately feel like asking him if he is sure he could pass a lie detector test in which he is asked whether he murdered any of the five women being featured on his own body?"

---"I agree with you that it's creepy to meet a single man here in New York who has tattoos of a variety of women on his body that beg the question of what happened to each of the women being featured in those tattoos? Are they alive today, and if so, would they definitely agree to serve as a very flattering personal reference for him?"

---"I would love to see a Crime Prevention Success of the Week feature story at least once per week in one of the local newspapers. That type of feature story would serve as a much-needed antidote to all of the very, very outrageous news stories about crimes that were NOT prevented here in New York."

---"Personally, I would recommend Crime Prevention Specialists as the type of person you might want for a personal friend. Make sure they don't have any criminal-background, though, before you agree to invite them to your Crime Prevention-theme social parties."

---"It's not as if I would cozy up to a Crime Prevention Expert here in order to then ask him to give me a free home-security audit of my condo unit. I would definitely insist on paying him at the full rate when he gives my home a very thorough home-security audit."

--"I think everyone in New York loses sleep every night from wondering as they lie in bed if there is some possible hidden point of entry into their home or apartment unit that they were never told about by the architect or real estate agent or landlord."