METROPOLITAN DIARY

Yankees Cap
Dear Diary:

I was raised in Los Angeles, but my older brother made sure that I grew up to be a Yankees fan. And when I moved to New York for graduate school in 1997, he gave me a Yankees cap to wear in my new hometown.

I proudly wore my hat all over, signaling that I shared something with New Yorkers and that I was one of them.

I had the cap on one night when I went to the drugstore. As the young man behind the register rang up my items, he looked at me.

“Nice hat,” he said.

I thanked him, satisfied that I’d made another local ally.

“What does the N.Y. stand for?” he asked. “Is it for Neil Young?”“It’s a Yankees cap,” I said, “for the New York Yankees, the baseball team.”

The man looked into my eyes with an irritated expression.

“What’s wrong with Neil Young?” he said.

— Allison Magee

((HAHA!!!))

Freedom of Choice
Dear Diary:

I was at Fairway on the Upper West Side, standing in front of a wall of bottles of olive oil and trying to decide which one to choose.

I turned to the man next to me.

“You need a Ph.D. to decide which oil to buy,” I said despairingly.

“I’ve got one,” he replied. “It doesn’t help.”

— Paul Stapleton

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/12/nyregion/metropolitan-diary.html