Co-written with Alyssa Wolff.
Living in New York City means your ears are constantly bombarded with terrible things. Days are filled with car horns, subway screeches, and countless neighbor sex-moans. Not to mention the daily screams from every single one of the 8 million people living here. And while our days are usually the worst, there are some beautiful, exciting, relief-inducing, just damn great things to hear.
- “There’s no credit card minimum” – The only way to buy $.99 bags of Ruffles at 3 AM is to charge them.
- “There is a train approaching the station” – Finally, we can get off of this disgusting subway platform and on to a metal nightmare tube!
- “Oh, no, you can take it” – About a cab, a seat at the bar, the last free falafel sample at a food truck. Basically about anything, anytime, anywhere.
- “It’s still happy hour.” – Then another $4 glass of wine, please!
- “I have an elevator in my building.” – This is great if you’re drunk and in heels. It’s downright thrilling if you’re a mover.
- “I have central air.” – You mean we can comfortably wear grey t-shirts when we come over?
- “Don’t worry, the bodega cat doesn’t bite.” – Go ahead grab that dusty Jesus candle without the fear of rabies.
- “Here’s the WiFi password” – Good, this way we’re not going to use up all of our data swiping through Tinder while waiting for our Hinge dates.
- “This apartment is rent controlled.” – Think of all of the things you could do with the extra money you save on rent. You could almost afford your monthly MetroCard!
- “The line for Shake Shack isn’t bad right now” – Excellent, now we only have to wait an hour outside for a burger and fries.
- “No, it was just a dead rat.” – Phew, thought it was a live one.
- “You’re free to go.” – After any arrest.
- “Sure you can charge your phone here.” – Thank you for allowing us to keep up this streak of never speaking to actual humans in real life.
- “Nice to meet you, I’m Alec Baldwin.” – The dream.
- “There’s laundry in the building.” – Dear god, the sweet freedom of doing laundry whenever we want, or not having strangers down the street wash, dry, and fold our underwear while we’re at work.
- “We live off the same subway line.” – The opening line to the only remotely feasible relationship you’ll have in this city. Transfers are the romance kiss of death. Delete their number if a non-cross-park bus route is involved.
- “I’m not here to judge” – This from a Seamless delivery guy is music to our ears.
- “Yes, we deliver.” – Carrying four wine bottles home three blocks is harder than CrossFit.
- “You don’t have to go to Queens.” – It’s sometimes easier to cross state lines than it is to hang out with your outer-borough friends.
- “Who the hell are you?” – From our neighbors. New York apartment living is like a reality show: we didn’t come here to make friends.
- “And the upstairs neighbor is a single deaf mute who never wears shoes, has no personal belongings and sleeps 18 hours a day.” – We’ll take it!
- “Oh, no he died.” – About the guy who never called you back after three incredible dates last spring.
- “That’s non-fat ice cream.” – About the entire container we finished while browsing the holiday sale racks in Duane Reade.
- [silence] – The best sound in the entire city.
