A Southern Gal Goes to New York

I just got back from attending the PASIC Power Conference in New York. What a treat. What a time. What a learning experience. Here are fifteen lessons I learned in the big city.

1. When people engaged me in conversation it wasn’t that they liked me, they just wanted to hear me talk and say ya’ll. Next time, I’m going to bring a tin cup and ask for donations.

2. When a taxi driver asks if he can turn at the next right, he’s really getting permission to rip you off.

3. When you say, “I’ll just take the special” to the waiter in some nice restaurant in Times Square, you need to warn your credit card company in advance and take out another mortgage on your home to pay for it.

4. Before leaving for the big city, brush up on all the different kinds of seasonings, fancy cheeses and cooking phrases that you might not know. This way when the 100% Angus tartar beef comes out, you won’t be thinking you just ordered a really good grilled smothered steak and ask why the heck the meat isn’t cooked and where’s the tartar cheese.

5. When a smiling, slightly sleazy man approaches you wearing a dark and over-sized trench coat, don’t look! No matter how tempting, don’t look. Why? You might like the watches he has penned to the inside of his coat. (Yeah, I thought he was up to something else and was a tad disappointed too! Hey, it would have a made a much better blog.)

6. It’s okay to wear tennis shoes in New York as long as you have your 12-inch heels tucked away in your back pack or Gucci purse—which may or may not be the same Gucci purses the guy down the corner of the street is selling. (Which, by the way, are real. He swears on his mother’s grave.)

7. Don’t go to New York unless you look good in black. Any other color attracts dark-colored trench-coat wearing people.

8. Apparently, New York doesn’t get the weather memos that announce the first day of spring. I’m talking about the white, icy stuff falling from the sky that looked a lot like snow.

9. Short people should never go out on Times Square at six in the evening and attempt to follow someone unless you can recognize them by their butt. (P.S. Some butts do look alike.)

10. Short people should never stand behind anyone in Times Square at six in the evening who is wearing a back pack. Especially if it’s a woman carrying her 12-inch heels.

11. You are just as likely to be run over by a bicycle in Manhattan as a taxi. It hurts less but the tire tracks on your brand new tennis shoes can be permanent.

12. Manhattan taxi drivers do not like bicyclists and apparently they get points for every one they run off the road. Bicyclists can obviously retrieve those points by banging their fist on the side of the taxi and scaring the tourists in the cab to the point of nearly peeing in their pants.

13. Road rage isn’t something you need to see a doctor about, it just means you were meant to become a Manhattan taxi driver or a bicyclist.

14. Ordering iced tea or iced water in a restaurant doesn’t mean you’ll actually get the ice. P.S. When a southerner pronounces ice, it sometimes sounds like “ass” to a New York waiter and can bring on some very interesting conversations that start with, “You want what kind of water?”

15. Never, ever pass up the opportunity to go to New York. The people, even the road-raging taxi drivers and bicyclists, trench-coat wearing venders, and anti-ice or “anti-ass” bringing waiters, are a sight to behold and an experience to cherish. I loved every moment of it. Thank you, New York for putting up with this country bumpkin.

So, have you ever been to New York? Have you gone somewhere that you felt as if you were in a completely different world? Hey, have some of you big city folks ever visited south and felt as if the world was off its kilter?