Weird Things New Yorkers Say and Do

I love making lists about New York. There are so many topics to choose from.

This list is for things that I find completely maddening in New York and its boroughs.
Here we go.

1: Why oh why do some home-owners insist on watering the pavements outside their houses. It doesn't take more than a minute or so to squirt the debris into the gutter. You don't have to stand there for minutes on end watering the sidewalk as if a magic beanstalk is going to shoot up and shower you with money.

2: People with ultra-huge umbrellas. You've seen them, the only dry people in New York on those days when it absolutely pours down. Huge 5-foot expanse of canvas stuck on the end of a stick. You battle your way down the sidewalk trying to avoid them whilst trying to keep your own body dry only to get squirted from the rain as it pours off the sides of their monster brellas'. God forbid should a gust of wind pick up and then these behemoths of the umbrella world will be off like kites.

3: People who spit, pick their noses, scratch their arses, smack their mouths, preen their hair, relocate their genitalia, cough without holding their hands over their mouths, kiss and cuddle and even in some instances pee &/or defecate in public. Yes and I've seen it believe me. All completely annoying and showing a general lack of decency and self-respect.

4: People who talk to themselves in public or hold supposedly important business conversations on their hand-free ear clip communication devices as they 'oh-so-importantly' wander aimlessly the streets of Manhattan.

5: Young people who rap to themselves on the subway. This should not only be declared illegal but punishable by death. Worse still are white kids rapping to themselves on the subway whilst wearing tilted baseball caps on sideways? Even worse than that are white kids who are obviously from out of town and singing like they are native black New Yorkers. Lethal Injection, be it painful or not is just too good for these folk. I mean come on you don't see young black kids roaming around singing country do you.

6: Large men who insist on taking off their shirts at the least provocation to bare man-boobs capable of breast-feeding a third-world country.

7: Young girls who wear low-cut jeans and short tops to reveal their bellies. Do these girls even own mirrors? I don't need to see your flabby gut spilling out into the open air young lady. I have my own flabby gut thank you very much. Maybe the mirrors some of these girls have are of the Side-show variety; lengthening and thinning their appearance making them feel 30 pounds lighter than they actually are.

8: The baggy jeans syndrome. Although this has thankfully died off in recent years, thankfully on the odd occasion you will still see young men with pants that are 4 sizes too small for them whilst proudly displaying their underwear. How do you shop for these things anyway?
'May I help you?' asks the Store Clerk.
'Yes, do you have something that's 4 sizes too big so that when I put it on it'll fall around my pubic area?'
'Is Sir Black?' replies the Clerk
'No, can't you tell' comes the reply.
'I'm sorry Sir, it is company policy not to indulge young white folk who think they're black, rap to themselves on the Subway, still wear baseball caps tilted to the side, wear fake chromed bling and speak like their Flavor Flave. Please be kind enough to f*** off!'.

9: All those pain-in-the-ass people who decide that the best time to play the Lottery is when everybody else is getting home from work. How many times do I have to go to my local Newsagent after a long hot day at work to pick up some milk only to see some pain-in-the-ass hogging up the clerk and reading off a seemingly endless stream of losing numbers.

10: People who walk directly across in front of you as you walk down the sidewalk parallel to the road. You know these people; they think they own the sidewalk. If you are walking across the sidewalk directly in front of the flow of pedestrian-traffic then you're the one who has to look out, not me. The same with people who come out of their homes like they own that little bit of sidewalk directly outside. No, you don't own it. The City owns it so calm yourself. In the City you have people who seemingly burst out of shops at a great rate of knots and with wild abandon just plough straight into the streaming masses that are walking quite normally across in front of them.

11: People who ask me directions. Is there a sign on my back or something? Did somebody from L.A. Ink come and leave an indelible image on the back of my neck saying 'Ask me anything'. People stop me in their cars to ask directions. God forbid if I don't know. Sometimes they are completely pissed off that I don't know how they connect to the Belt Parkway. Other times I'll give directions and then 5 minutes later I'll realize that I've pointed them in entirely the wrong direction.

12: Strangers who you don't know and who are overly friendly to you on a Weekday morning in Manhattan. There's only one reason that anyone says 'Hi buddy' or 'How ya doin' or 'That's a nice hat' etc. and that is that they want some money. Oh and the classic 'could you lend me a dollar or a quarter' I have to make a call or I need bus fare. Yeah right. Worse of all is the 'Do you have the time'. A lot of pick-pockets use stupid questions like these as a ruse to befuddle you and then an accomplice will subtly bump into you and rob you blind.

13: Beggars on the train who use the same old tired diatribe to part you from your hard earned cash. I don't want to hear that you lost your job, or that you're living in a Starbucks toilet or that you have new forms of disease that science hasn't yet been able to name. Just sing a song if you have to but save me from the pity-speech. That's not putting me in a good mood. It's only making me depressed.

14: Religious zealots on the train spouting their own unique take on the Bible, Koran or any other wacky novel of choice. Never has death seemed quite so attractive as when you have to sit there listening to how Jesus is going to save you or alternatively how he's going to kick you in nuts for eternity should you be an atheist.