The New Yorker

Every so often, my roommates and I wonder whether we look like New Yorkers yet.  After all, we've lived in this city for nearly a year.  In that time, we've conquered the worst winter here in two decades, and we're well on our way to coasting through what I'm told is a relatively mild New York summer (and I'm reminded constantly of how mild this summer is when I still complain about the humidity or the thunderstorms and people tell me about how much worse "last year" was, as though I care).

In conversations, when I say I moved here from California, the reply is, more often than not, "Yeah, I thought so."  And there's something wonderful about that, possessing such an unmistakable air as to be unequivocally Californian in origin.  I suppose it's because the flip side of looking like a New Yorker is whether I feel like a New Yorker, and I'm not sure I can quite abandon the idea that I have been, and always shall be, a Californian.  Of all the places to be from, scientists have proven that California is very close to the top (they discovered this along with the Higgs boson at CERN, I believe).

Times Square, where I can virtually guarantee you
that no one willingly there is actually from New York

But I think being taken for a New Yorker brings with it a sense of achievement.  It means mastering a subway system so unnecessarily complex that I wouldn't be surprised if Rube Goldberg consulted in its design ("You mean downtown trains stop at this station, but uptown trains don't?  Why?  Why in god's name?  I can see the uptown trains passing by a perfectly good platform right over there!").  It means walking single-mindedly to any and every destination and never letting anything – slow walkers, families, police officers, people splayed out on the sidewalk, in desperate need of help – to get in your way.  It means regarding Trader Joe's as a kind of Shangri-La, worthy of an hour's wait in the checkout line.  And, most importantly, it means looking with disdain on the scourges that descend upon the city every summer: tourists.

When I asked another group of friends – friends who are, I will admit, unquestionably genuine New Yorkers, with several years under their belt to my less-than-one – whether they thought I might look like a New Yorker by now, they laughed at the idea.

I'll have you know, I have often been mistaken for a New Yorker.  People come up to me on the streets all the time asking for directions.  Rarely do I ever know where it is they're headed, but, helpful person that I am, I'll give them directions to somewhere that's probably just as good, if not better:  "I don't really know how to get to the Chrysler Building," I think to myself, "but the Time Warner Center is nearby.  I'll send them thataway."  I think they appreciate it.

Shake Shack: where a burger half the size costs twice as much as In-n-Out.

There's also one time recently at Shake Shack – a burger chain that New Yorkers mistakenly believe is a suitable equivalent to In-n-Out – when I inadvertently cut someone waiting in line for the condiments (and I know what you're thinking: "At In-n-Out, they put the condiments on the burger for you.").  "Fucking New Yorker," I heard the man mutter under his breath.  It was a moment of simultaneous pride and dismay.  I was finally a New Yorker, a fucking New Yorker! 

At the same time, I felt bad for being rude, and I didn't want him to get the wrong impression.  There were, I realize now, a number of appropriate responses to the situation.  I could have said, "Oh, I'm so sorry!  I didn't see you there."  Or, "Yeah, sometimes I get a little cutthroat when it comes to condiments."  Or, with a little chuckle, "Seems like I'm finally getting the hang of living in New York!"

Instead, I blurted out, "Oh no, I'm from California!"