Miss Manners

I basically enjoyed New York Magazine guide to manners in New York, despite the fact that they felt compelled to make a joke of everything, thus undermining their own sound advice. Here are some urban etiquette do's and don'ts that may not have appeared in the magazine and that usually give me a conniption:

• Tourists: LEARN TO WALK. Don't hog the sidewalks, don't walk three deep, don't saunter staring up at the cornices of buildings as if you were taking a stroll in a park. The biggest mode of transportation in New York are people's legs and you are the equivalent of a 90 year-old driver in a Cadillac (in Miami). I have a friend that thinks that sidewalks should observe the same rules of traffic as two lane roads; that is, people going in one direction walk on the right and people going in the other walk on the left. Move it or get out of the way.

• Cab drivers or other drivers who HONK should be executed on the spot. I can't stress this enough.

• So do people who urinate on the street. One night I found a particularly subhuman specimen of the B&T crowd peeing liberally right at my doorway.
I said: "Do I pee in front of your house?" He said: "I thought this was an office building". Oh, okay.

• Another night, I found a couple fornicating (doggie style) in full view near my building. This is not nice.

• Women: learn to use the bathroom quickly (and wipe your disgusting sprinkles from the seat when you are done). What the hell takes so long to pee? Are you having a child in there?

• Homeless people who rummage through garbage should have the courtesy to put the garbage back where they found it.

• If you come out of a bar at 3 am, don't scream like a banshee or laugh at decibel levels loud enough to wake up an entire neighborhood. Or I'll come and get you. (I have a fantasy that I own a long range firearm, such as sharpshooters use and I get trigger happy with people like you).

• Cars whose alarms start blasting unprovoked should be thrown into the East River. People who blast reggaeton or the equivalent with ear splitting bass boosters should be thrown into the East River together with their cars.

• Always remember to say hello, please and thank you.