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Vness Rising
3 min readFeb 26, 2021

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New York for Beginners #002 — Never Say THIS to a New Yorker!

1 — Haven’t you had enough coffee?

Photo by Ilse Orsel on Unsplash

New Yorkers are to coffee what Brits are to tea, what the French are to vin what the Irish are to whisky and the Japanese Sake, Russians vodka, you get the picture.

It’s not unusual to see an eight year old go to Starbucks and order an oatmeal Frappuchino with whipped cream. Even dogs can get a coffee. Having coffee is probably the only national pastime New Yorkers have because it’s the only break they can take with a clear conscience -‘This coffee will totally help me work even longer hours’ and it’s why their tempers are so frayed. Trying to police their coffee will get you defunded real quick.

2 — Let it go

Don’t say this either. And don’t get in the way. New Yorkers are gritty, toughened by years of subway travel. They won’t hesitate to start a fight or end one. They’re not the most sensitive, luckily, but once they are riled up they are dogged and won’t stop till they have your head on a stick. Kindergarten parents are the worst by the way. That’s because New Yorkers aren’t supposed to have children.

3 — There’s food at home

Photo by Rikke Filbært on Unsplash

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Vness Rising
Vness Rising

Written by Vness Rising

Published author, playwright, editor, journalist. I write on race, culture, relationships with some flash fiction thrown in.

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