But for some reason the real “me” insists on pushing the real “me” out of the closet. I have this desire to just shout it out already and come clean. It is time to confess. I’m tired of living a lie. Ok, so I’ll take a deep breathe and just spit it out for you:
I was born in New York City – that’s Manhattan, New York City. Not the Bronx, Staten Island, Queens or the Bronx or whatever else people might think of as New York City, but Manhattan, New York City. The “Big Apple”, the center of it all, the big cahoona. The center of it all.
Buffalo, for example, is located in “Upstate” New York, which I’m not sorry to say is NOT the real New York. It is “Upstate” New York, which is just not New York City. Never was, never will be. Same goes for Albany and all those other “Upstate” fake New York towns.
New York City should have long ago been declared a separate entity (State) from Upstate New York. Mayor Bloomberg should be Gov. Bloomberg of New York City. That other guy – the shifty looking 1/2 blind guy (who should wear sun glasses like Stevie Wonder so as not to appear so shifty) – should be referred to as the Gov. of “Upstate” NY, not all of NY. Just like they separate West Virginia and Virginia or North and South Dakota.
Anyway, I’ve tried to hide who and what I am. I moved down to Florida over twenty years ago and tried to forget my past. I’ve tried be a “Floridian.” I tried to move slower, think dumber and do everything else that is so characteristic of the people outside New York City. I’ve had to put with “fake” pizza, bad potato salad, funny tasting roast beef, greedy bosses from Indiana, lazy workers from Texas, stupid cops from Mississippi and stores that are nothing like you find in New York City.
I have know for the longest time that the popular statement “If you can make it here (NY) you’ll make it anywhere”, is just not true. Because making it in NY is actually relatively easy compared to rest of the country. It is truer to say “If you can make it here – let’s say Atlanta – you can in fact make it anywhere.” Why? Because folks all over the place live, work and think like people from Atlanta, Des Moines or Charlotte than New Yorkers. Bottom line is, people from New York City can and usually do go crazy trying to “make it” outside of NY. I’m living testament to that. After twenty or more years, I’m still trying to make it outside of NY.
Ok, ok - now I know you’re asking yourself right now, what brought on this need to confess all of a sudden. Well, it’s been brewing for some time now. I was in a Wal-Mart Supercenter this afternoon and well, it was a big mistake. From wherever it’s been “hiding” the “ole” New Yorker in me surfaced up like fresh crude oil spewing from a newly drilled well.
And it was standing in front of the cream cheese shelf at Wal-Mart where it only got worse. You see, these two folks (I’m sure not from NYC) in their 50’s just stood there perusing the various choices of cream cheese. And I waited, and waited and waited. They picked one cream cheese up and then put it down. They picked another one up and then put it back. I was not alone standing there waiting for this decision “process” to end. There were was another woman. These two stood there as if no one else in the world existed to share in the joy of ignoring everyone else buying just the right cream cheese.
And for a moment I tried to assume my patient old “Southern” self, justifying my stupidly standing there thinking to myself that “Life’s a box a chocolates” and oh my, oh my ya’ll don’t know what’s inside” and…NO, I said to myself, this is it, this is enough, I’ve had it. I can’t take it anymore. I am not Forest Gump. I’m a New Yorker and I’m tired of this crap.
The fact is that all the people in this Wal-Mart appeared to me to be freak’n slow simpletons with no lives. They’re standing around reading cream cheese boxes or paper towel wrappers with what seem like no other thought or care in the world. And that’s just not good enough for me. Because that’s just not the way we did things in NYC.
I have a life. I can do my order the NEW YORK CITY way for God sakes. I know what I want. I know where it is. GET OUT OF MY WAY! I have better things to do, and I’m gonna do it, by God. Hey, I’m from New York City! And I don’t “lollygag” milling about the isles in Wal-Mart all afternoon. Because that’s just not the way we did things in NYC.
I tried to go on, but I just couldn’t. I just left a 1/2 filled shopping cart off to the side, put on my shades and walked out. Because that what a New Yorker would do. I’ll just have to go back in the middle of the night or something when, perhaps, there will hopefully be some real New Yorkers shopping, just like back in New York.
The photo credit is : www.adweek.com/aw/content_display/news/agency..
