New York-isms

Every resident of NYC, after living in the city for a few years, reaches a moment when they finally feel like they are indeed a true New Yorker.  Whether it is an outer body experience as your view yourself reacting to a particular thing, place or person or if it takes a trip to your hometown or another city altogether where you realize you have about as much patience as Donald Duck (wait what...yeah I don't know, I googled notoriously impatient things and he came up quite a few times, so take that to your next trivia game) and you can't fathom how people can possibly walk as slow as they seem to be walking, you realize there's officially no going back to your former self and no matter where you go in life, there will always be a little New Yorker in you.   Different people have different views on what it means to be a true New Yorker and its a concept that was done fairly well last season in How I Met Your Mother (which was refreshing as despite my steadfast loyalty to my weekly viewings of How I Met Your Mother, I spent most of Season 5 trying to decide if it had officially jumped the shark).  According to Ted, Barney, Marshall and Lily, to be a true New Yorker you must have stolen a cab from somebody else, you must have cried on a Subway and you must have killed a cockroach with your bare hands.  Well two out of three ain't bad folks and so help me if I ever kill a cockroach with my bare hands.  So far I have thrown hardcover books at them (fail), stepped on them (I just got chills recalling the sound of that crunch. gag.) and obliterated them by overspraying a raid can while yelling dieeeeeeeee at the top of my lungs and then nearly asphyxiating on the fumes because it turns out you don't need to use a full can of raid on one insect, especially when you live in a 300 sq. ft. room.  But, I think there are many other moments when you know you're a true New Yorker.  In fact, topping the list is when you consider your relationship with New York to be just that.  Carrie Bradshaw considered New York her true love on Sex and the City.  My relationship with New York is a little bit more of a love/hate thing.  There are days when I am in the midst of a true love affair, dancing through the streets and counting my blessings for the ability to live in the best city in the world.  Know that.  Then, there are days when paying exorbitant prices to live in a 500sq foot studio, alone courtesy of the 6-1 male-to-female ratio, and returning home at the end of a workday which is generally hours later than the rest of the country, really gets the better of me and I am no longer impressed with the glamour and the culture and the pulse, the amazing pulse, of this city.   Sometimes its hard to live somewhere where you're literally surrounded by models and you are shocked when you travel to other places and learn you are not, in fact, an obese troll.  In some ways New York is like an abusive boyfriend.  There are days when it is deliriously wonderful, when it makes you really feel alive, when you would defend it to your death and you can't imagine loving anything more, and then there are days when it beats you up and breaks you down to the point where, well, you have no choice but to cry on the subway (which is where we'll start the list).

So as I put together a farewell bar crawl for a friend leaving this great city, I started thinking about a random assortment of times/things/trials/tribulations (or hell let's call them accomplishments because New Yorkers are nothing if not snobby) that could qualify as reaching 'New Yorker' status or depending on where you fall on the love/hate scale with New York on a particular day we can refer to them as moments when you realize you've been in New York too long.  While New Yorkers are nothing if not snobby, I'm nothing if not completely absurd so don't be concerned when this list is missing some obvious indicators and instead includes statements that make you question our friendship.  Or, if we're not friends, make you thankful for that.

You might be a New Yorker if...

1. Let's start with one referenced in How I Met Your Mother.  You've cried on the subway....more than once.  And, when relaying your latest sob show to a fellow New Yorker you say something like "you know when you cry on the subway and" and they nod because anyone who's anyone has cried on the subway.  Here's the thing about crying on the subway.  It is both good and bad.  Both refreshing and terrifying.  While most people will sometimes allow themselves a good cry-fest in the car or break down for a few minutes at the end of a bad day in solitude, in New York we don't have cars and we don’t have the luxury of crying in private sometimes.  And, so, the ability to cry privately in public is sort of a gem.  It's also sort of horrific, that no one even bothers to notice you not even bothering to wipe the tears away, but hell you're no one special and they probably shed their own tears yesterday.
2. You've had a physical altercation with a cab that almost hit you.  I mean listen I ain't nobody's fool if someone tries to hit me I’m going to hit them back...snap snap snap...right on their shiny yellow hood. Let’s not focus on the fact that it was probably your fault because - subtopic, You also play frogger while crossing the street and get angry at cars that beep at you when they have the right of way - and, of course, you wait to cross the street on the street not the sidewalk (every second counts when you're always in a hurry) and then you get annoyed when a car driving on the road they have every right to be driving on almost hits you- and somehow because we're an angry demographic instead of reacting in fear when a giant yellow vehicle interrupts whatever song we're bopping along to on our ipod by screeching to a halt mere inches from our bodies, we scream obscenities at the cabdriver (who can't hear us because he’s inside the car) and then punish inanimate objects (that'll show you!)  You also think its hilarious when tourists try to follow you across the street when you are crossing without the right of way and then you hear the screech of the car and the curse of the driver behind you when those idiots didn't walk fast enough. 
3. Oh hey, sticking with the cab theme, because there are just so many cab related moments:  (i) You've had countless near death experiences in a cab that would leave any normal human being terrified, but instead you were too busy playing on your smartphone to notice at all OR you actually thank the taxi driver for getting you to your destination in such a timely manner, and, of course, (ii) The taxi TV is the worst thing since Haiti and the ability to pay with a credit card is worth more than your college education.
4. You can successfully navigate the underground wonderland of shops below the Rock Center subway station.  About a year ago my friend finally took me through the winding underground world from 47th street to 50th street, from 6th avenue to 5th avenue, and I was astounded at how many shops, restaurants and the like were bustling down there.  It was like being introduced to a whole new world just blocks from my office.  A few weeks later I tried to go back and find the salad shop we had ventured to together, but wound up getting so turned around I ended up back on the mean streets of midtown and gave up.  Now I use the underground as a shortcut and a way to stay dry when it’s raining.  Look how far I've come!
5. You know the exact street borders for various neighborhoods and know where each neighborhoods ranks.  Your search for an apartment is described to a broker in terms of such cut-offs.  "What part of nothing above 24th street did you not understand?"  And, you have a favorite restaurant, bar, store and fro-yo shop in pretty much every neighborhood worth frequenting.  (You also immediately have to discover a favorite restaurant in every ethnic genre upon moving to a new neighborhood).  You recognize that moving on up in New York is really moving on down, since everyone starts out in the upper east side and affordable real estate below 14th street is worth skipping work meetings to lock down.  
6. Your parents are actually concerned about your life skills.  You don't have to do your own laundry - someone else does that, folds it and delivers it to your apartment.  You don't have to clean your apartment - you have a cleaning lady with a key to your apartment that magically transforms your space while you are out.  You don't have to cook - you have more restaurants that deliver in a 3-block radius than most towns have in total.  You don't have to have any supplies of any sort on hand - there's a duane reade within a block of your apartment that is open 24 hours.  And, you don't have to know how to get anywhere - because you can just jump in a cab and give a destination (without lifting your head from your iphone, of course). 
7. You have a therapist.  And then you also have about a dozen pseudo therapists that you force to listen to your so-called problems.  Because lets face it, New Yorkers are a neurotic bunch of individuals.  So, you talk to your hair stylist, your waxer, your taxi cab driver (honestly the things people admit in front of a taxi driver are almost reason enough to try that profession out for a day), your doorman, the ladies at the nail salon, the cashier at 7-11, your personal trainer, your bartender and of course your friends - who are just patiently waiting their turn to unleash all sorts of crazy.
8. Absolutely everything annoys you.   You get annoyed waiting 5 minutes for a subway to arrive, which is why you will literally barrel through people down the subway stairs in an attempt to catch the train currently there and shoot daggers of death with your eyes at all the people who got in your way.  You know where to wait to get on the exact same subway car every morning because it lets you out in the best place, or will be the least crowded option or is the easiest to transfer from.  You have your morning subway routine down to an art form.  Being delayed for "train traffic" or worse, "a sick passenger" makes you violently angry, you check your watch every 22 seconds and react with exasperated sighs each minute that passes while you are still waiting to move - despite the fact that generally you aren't late.  Not being late is irrelevant since you are always in a rush.  Even when you have nowhere to be, you're in a rush.  Even if you might get somewhere early, you're in a rush and you make no secret, to anyone, about how busy and important you think you are.  
9. You own at least one pair of uggs and one pair of hunters and you're never quite sure which one to wear in the winter.  You have at least 5 umbrellas and keep 2 at the office but you never have one with you when it spontaneously downpours on your walk home.  You have Zagat guides from the last five years and have never opened them.  You have a subscription to Time Out and NY Mag, but find you mostly read them online.  You think the NY Times is the best newspaper on the planet but sadly can't remember the last time you bought it since the am and the metro are free and being shoved in your face as you buy your morning coffee from your cart guy.
10. You can't remember how to drive.  And, you're sort of dismayed that the DMV allowed you to just renew your license.
11. You've used the phrase (or expressed a similar sentiment without sounding quite as douchey) 'Brooklyn has become gentrified' as if you're in the know.  Generally you have little basis for comparison either, unless you count the hip hop culture, Spike Lee joints and pictures you've seen from decades past.  It's more a statement you make when people are considering moving to various parts of Brooklyn that are more stroller than gangster and they express a hesitation, so naturally with a roll of the eyes you mock their fear with the fact that Brooklyn has become gentrified (and who doesn't know that at this point).  Park Slope does not go hard Mos Def.
12. And of course, you refer to New York simply as The City.  Because it is The City.  And you actually laugh at other people's attempts to call their city, the city, even when you're in their city and it makes sense but you refuse to concede to that logic because, I mean, come on, you can't hand over the title to just anywhere.