Things people in New York do that make the rest of us look like fucking idiots
1) Try to take a picture in Grand Central during rush hour; get visibly angry as the entire work force of Manhattan takes up residence in your photo.2) Breakdance for cash in the Union Square subway station. If you're a commuter, inexplicably don't be in a hurry, create a semi-circle that completely interrupts the flow of traffic and gawk at said breakdancing.
3) Attempt to use a worthless MetroCard. Repeatedly swipe said card whilst creating a logjam at your turnstile. It's OK, though - "Insufficient Fare" is actually an indiscriminate aggregation of symbols that doesn't mean anything.
4) Own a dog smaller than my foot. Oh and don't worry; your precious pooch's excrement will take care of itself.
5) Be slightly ahead of me as you walk down a city street. For absolutely no reason, abruptly stop walking in the middle of the fucking block.
6) Wait in line to gain access to a store.
7) Wait in line to gain access to a bar.
8) Wait in line for anything.
9) As if you weren't already dangerously close to resembling a blueberry muffin, have Tasti-D delivered.
10) Wear a Red Sox hat. Rooting for your team is one thing, but actively wearing a Boston hat around New York City is downright insulting. If you love Boston so much, then get the fuck out of here.
11) Have a "girl's night out." Don't talk to any guys and look completely uninterested in anyone but yourself. Wonder why you're going home alone at the end of the night.
12) Take a cab five blocks. Don't tip.
13) Open up an extremely ostentatious and gaudy-looking bar on 29th Street called Tonic, because Murray Hill's obnoxiously loud and overpriced bar needs weren't being sufficiently filled by Mercury Bar, Joshua Tree, 515 and VII.
14) Complain about never meeting anyone despite living in a city of 8 million people. Serial date people you meet on the Internet and don't give anyone a chance. Use and discard people like condoms.
15) Blog.
posted by LA at 7:18 AM
35 Comments:
*lol* I'm still cracking up about the "Bluberry Muffin" reference. I have a new one to add to the mix, though I cannot take credit for it (an old co-worker told me about it). It is the Touron (Noun. A tourist that has evident characteristics of a Moron. Traits include (but are not limited to): doing everything slowwwly (including walking, paying at a register, talking); always wondering why others are cursing them out; strolling 3- or 5-across along a crowded sidewalk while holding hands; giving native New Yorkers condescending dirty looks for no reason at all and complaining about everything being so "dirty".
What do they expect this city to be like, Disneyland?
Cute...but what does number 11 have to do with anything? Just kind of seems like a pathetic attempt to throw that good old Larry bitterness into the mix. The rest are good.
Times Square is Disneyland.
Metrotards are the people who can't swipe their cards.
Getting fat momma'd is when you can't get past that fat person struggling up the steps in front of you.
Obviously you have never been to a Trader Joe's. *grin*
Who's "the rest of us?"
Touron and Metrotards.
Loving it!
Regarding the hats:
You know what though, New Yorkers do that shit all the time in other cities. If I had a nickel for every guy i've seen in a Yankees jersey at a Marlins-Diamondbacks game, I oculd probably pay for Season Tickets. Why I will be wearing a Marlins shirt to the Yankees-Red Sox game.
8) Wait in line for anything.
exactly. we wait on line.
I'd add something about enormous strollers too. And people who stop right at the top of a staircase to figure out where they want to go next. I was making a list of my pet peeves recently and realized that, with the exception of people who yawn in public without covering their mouths, they all had to do with behavior that impedes my movement around the city.
you forgot: 16) adopting whatever phrase makes you sound Eurofaggier-than-thou. Case in point? ParenthetiGal's and everyone's new use of "waiting on line".
Kids, it has never, ever been said this way in this country, and pretending it was always like that doesn't grant you higher social status. Oh sure, you say: this is how we roll yo, keep it real, go with the flow, thank God it's Friday, far out, jeepers, crikey and Great Honk.
But I say, my old-John-Fogeyty ass says: You are waiting IN line, you bottle-blonded girl's-night-having Lizzie Grubman. You're in it, trapped by it and suffocating in its juices. You're not above it, looking down on it or better than it. Because if you were waiting ON line, you'd be dialing into AOL via the modems of circa 1998 to discuss the latest SATC witticisms and HorseyFace's new jewelry fad. But the page isn't loading fast enough and the night, like you, is no longer young. You're waiting IN line. Everyone's watching you not get into the hippest spot, everyone sees how your friends were smart enough to avoid this nightmare, everyone can tell by your neurotic smoking and nervous facade of attitude how your guy-friend declined to swoop you up and into those doors tipping the doorman on the way. No, sweetie, you're IN line, and wish all you want, forever there shall you stay.
P.S. Waiting on a line to snake into Trader Ho's is ludicrous. I mean, Whore Foods has the same stuff.
This is why NYC is so over. It's all so pathetically September 10. I have seen the future, and it is Las Vegas, baby.
there must be something in the air because i have been wanting to write a grip-list too!
i personally love #5 and the comment about stopping at the stop of subways steps! grrr!! i hate when people stop short!
how about the stopping and chatting at the top/bottom of the escalators! so dangerous, not to mention fucking annoying
Or the slow walkers who are determined to cross the street quickly even if it means almost getting hit. Once crossed, they resume their slow pace.
Hey Andrew, Get over yourself dude.
I don't know where you're from, but those of us who are from new york, originally, we wait ON line. this isn't a hip, bottled-blonde-murray-hill-jap-it's-so-hot-to-say right now thing.
-K
The correct phrase is surely neither 'waiting in line' nor 'waiting on line'. It is 'queuing'. But I suppose that doesn't have the same Ameritard ring to it...
Yes, I'm sure it's shocking to those who moved to NYC sometime during or after Giuliani's second term (i.e. most of the current population of the East Village), but "waiting on line" has always been how we say it, and long precedes the rise of the Internet and probably, for that matter, the telephone. In fact it's always been a handy way to spot outsiders, when they say waiting "in line," just as when they order their food "for here" instead of the correct way, which is "to stay." Or when they order a slice of pizza with any sort of green vegetable on top (the only proper way to eat a slice is plain or, if you're feeling crazy, with pepperoni). Or when they stand at the corner waiting for the light to change, thereby getting in my way when I'm trying to cross the street. But all this is a moot discussion, as real New Yorkers don't wait on line. A born New Yorker sees a line to get into anything, and I don't care if it's to get in to a one-night-only performance of the reanimated corpses of Elvis, Jimi Hendrix and all the dead Beatles, he's still gonna say "screw that" and keep walking until he finds an uncrowded pizza place where he can get a plain slice. 'Cause honestly, if there's a line, it can only be a line full of out-of-towners, and who wants to hang around with them?
To be honest, I've never heard people argue over the phrase "waiting on line" or "waiting in line," nor do I really care.
However, the rest of what IWN says is dead on.
The on-line in-line debate is actually quite a popular one...I've been persecuted time and time again by non-New Yorkers for my strange and nonsensical phrasing...
Um yeah, who cares if it's right or wrong, but this native New Yorker has always said waiting "on line."
IWN, you forgot to mention that REAL New Yorkers order "plain" slices as opposed to "cheese" slices when they are ordering their pizza "to stay."
16) Be weight challenged and take up 2 seats on the train, then proceed to moan and groan when a person wants to sit next to you.
17) When you get on the train, make sure you wrap your arm all the way around the pole and even lean on it. Nobody else needs to use a pole to steady themselves anyway. Especially that old lady that just got on that nobody will give up their seat for. Let granny fly.
18)Talk loudly about how many important people you know in the film and fashion industry. It's fascinating. Really. Thanks.
19) Stare at the book I am reading and then proceed to tell your friend the plot and how you read it years ago.
20)Wait on line for a table at a Brooklyn restaurant. (Screw your on line/in line controversy - I say what I want bitches.)
21) Play your ipod/ghetto walkman/discman from 1992 really loud. I am sure, that like me, everyone around you wants to hear your music. Who doesn't like Whitney Houston/any old rap/crazy salsa-esque music on their morning commute?
ps. I love this site.Thanks for letting me vent.
Bringing your bike on the subway agitates me. Why bring the bike if you aren't going to ride it? Two bonus points for wearing the dorky helmet on the train.
Fantastic list. Aside from the comment on Red Sox hats. There are Red Sox bars in New York. There are no Yankees bars in Boston, because Boston is full of idiots. I don't like Boston, I like the Red Sox. There's a distinct difference.
And amen to your item about the Union Square subway station breakdancing-gawkers. Idiots.
Real native checking in. For my 40 years in the city it is both on line and in line. Personal preference.
You have a rebuttal on the New York Metroblog site -
http://nyc.metblogs.com/archives/2006/04/in_defense_of.phtml#183452
Yes, some people are stupid and annoying and in your way. But the other half of the equation is probably the fact that you are running late or angry or in a shitty mood all the time.
Maybe if you weren't so self-important, you would be a little happier. No one on this planet is interested in doing everything in a way that pleases you. Except for maybe your mom. So go cry to her.
Even as a New York trasplant, I found this list incredibly funny. I only take umbrage with #8.....Shake Shack really is worth the wait. Not to mention there are definitely worse ways to spend your lunch hour.....like working....
i love this list
gracias
In London girls nights out don't end with us wondering why we are going home alone because we know we're not interested in anyone except ourselves!
I just wandered in off another blog to check out the madness that you be peddlin'........an' I'll take a baker's dozen cuz your rant is pure gold, kid!
Jesus Christ! You Yankees fans lord it over the Sox for 86 years both in New York and New England and now that Sox fans are confident enough to wear their hats in NYC you're pissed off?!?! You're the kind of asshole that screams death to Jews, then riots when cartoons depicting Muhammad are published.
Also, I think you're just pissed off because there are at least one or two safe havens for Sox fans in NYC while there's nothing for Yankees fans in Boston. Face it buddy. The Yanks may have the international appeal, but this truly is a Red Sox Nation.
I spend a fair amount of time in the city and man, this is cracking me the fuck up!! But true, all of it!!!
Great list. Between "tourons" and "metrotards," I think I can identify with everything on the list, except the sort of masturbatory debate between waiting in and on line. I don't identify with either, because I am a true New Yorker -- if I see a line I keep going. The cheese vs. plain thing totally works, and the most obvious way to spot a tourist is a guy wearing a pair of Wrangler jeans that are too short and holding a subway map and a camera.
Oh, and for anyone that wears a Red Sox hat in public in NYC, don't come crying to me when my friend Meat removes your hat, shits in it, and then replaces it on your head and keeps walking down the street. You waited 86 years, you can wait another 86 years, or get a really good shampoo.
Great list!
#3 attempting to use a worthless Metrocard. This bothers the hell out of me. It's always non-Caucasians and usually thug-kids with traditional gear. Pantyhose on the head, huge white t-shirt hanging at least to the knees, baggy jeans which they frickin tie to their shoelaces (??), and the all-important flimsy bag with the cinch string.
The reason they don't understand "insufficient fare" is probably due to their horrific command of the English language. The verb "to be" is not in their lexicon. One teen-thug once said to me, "You Gay!", and I corrected him, "actually, I think you mean to say, you are gay." He sat there drooling, mouth agape.
In my neighborhood, you're an anomaly if you speak English. The Rican and DR transplants in the bodegas talk about buying things in terms of "pesos". Last I checked nobody accepts pesos in the US.
I just wish these people would learn some basic english so others who can understand the term "insufficient fare" don’t have to wait behind them as they continue trying the card.
You dont say "can i have a plain slice" or "cheese slice" Its simply, "slice". Any true pizza vendor will know what u mean when you say "slice". And im from Jersey. HA.
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