Thursday, September 2, 2010

Life in NYC, According to "The Onion"

A friend of ours posted a pretty awesome article by The Onion on Facebook today entitled "8.4 Million New Yorkers Suddenly Realize New York City A Horrible Place To Live." For any of you who may not be familiar with The Onion, allow me to explain that it is a satirical entertainment newspaper made up of hilariously sarcastic "news reports." For example, one of my favorite Onion headlines of all time was "Over-Hydrated Terrier Proud Owner of Six City Blocks." Ha!

I found today's New York-related article laugh-out-loud funny. It told the "story" of the day all 8.4 million New Yorkers in all five boroughs finally said "enough is enough" and hightailed it out of town. A few of my favorite excerpts were (comments from me in brackets):
According to residents, the mass exodus was triggered by a number of normal, everyday New York City events. For Erin Caldwell of Manhattan, an endlessly honking car horn sent her over the edge, causing her to go into a blind rage and scream "shut up!" at the vehicle as loud as she could until her voice went hoarse; for Danny Tremba of Queens it was being cursed at for walking too slow; and for Paul Ogden, also of Queens, it was his overreaction to somebody walking too slow. [I have totally yelled at honking car horns, and overreacted to people who dare to walk too slow.]

Other incidents that prompted citizens to pick up and leave included the sight of garbage bags stacked 5 feet high on the sidewalk [YES]; the realization that being alone among millions of anonymous people is actually quite horrifying; a blaring siren that droned on and f***ing on [awful]; muddy, refuse-filled puddles that have inexplicably not dried in three years [seriously, where do they come from? Why are they there?]; the thought of growing into a person whose meanness and cynicism is cloaked in a kind of holier-than-thou brand of sarcasm that the rest of the world finds nauseating [I do worry about that]; and all the g**d*** people [PREACH ON, my friend].

In addition, 3 million New Yorkers reportedly left the city because they realized the phrase "Only in New York" is actually just a defense mechanism used to convince themselves that seeing a naked man take a s***  on a park bench is somehow endearing, or part of some shared cultural experience. [Ha!]
(To read the full article, click here.)

I just found it funny to read such a sarcastic (but not necessarily untrue) take on New York City life, and wanted to share it with you. I still love this place, though! Smells, garbage, noise, people and all.

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