24 Of The Best Things You Can Hear If You’re A New Yorker
By Alison Leiby
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.