New York has plentiful daily plagues and irritations, some of which are lethal, but most are just nuisances. They have given New Yorkers a well-deserved rep for being neurotic. I Googled “neurotic New Yorker” (with the quotes) and came up with no less than 219,000 results.
Who wouldn’t be a psychosomatic bundle of stress with so many physical threats, especially those of the itty-bitty-hard-to-spot variety? A few short months back at home and I am already obsessive about hand sanitizer and the lurking presence of bed bugs.
My three years in Atlanta were clearly a sanitized bubble. I’m starting to understand why my mom (not a native New Yorker) used to wash all the clothes we wore on the subway train with disinfectant.
2 Responses for "What Doesn’t Kill You Makes You Completely Neurotic"
This is funny because I can remember moving back to NY and having my cousins yell at me for sitting on the bed when visiting. Of course I would do it anyway and probably still would just because
At first it seemed odd that they would change into “disinfected clothes” immediately when arriving home, but now it all makes sense.
Funny, right? I used to mindlessly eat, touch things on the subway, rub my eyes, etc. Now I’ve come to see that I live in a giant petri dish. Living in Atlanta and coming back home to NY has made me grossed out by things I once thought of as normal. NY is wonderful but totally filthy. I would yell at you too.
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