Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Perspective: LawnGuyLand (Long Island)



See that piece of land that looks like a tail?
It is at the bottom on New York State, and to
the east of Manhattan and Brooklyn. That is
LawnGuyLand - "Long Island."

My family moved there from Queens, a part of the
"City," when I was in 3rd Grade.

Geographically Queens and Brooklyn are a part of
Long Island, but you'll never hear them say that.
Brooklyn, Queens, Staten Island, and the Bronx
are all considered "boroughs" of the City.

NYC and its boroughs are in many ways miles apart
from Long Island in terms of style and personality.
You may know nothing of Long Island (the "Island"),
except perhaps for The Hamptons, the playground
of celebrities.

As with every place in the world, I am fairly
certain there are things that make sense to the
locals, and few others.

Yesterday I got an email with several things
about those from Long Island. Many of which I
can relate to. For the fun of it, I thought I
would share. If you are interested in what's
here and need translation, just let me know.

And, for the record, I was a "South Shore Girl."

Here you go:

You live in the shadow of the greatest city in the world,
but you almost never go there.

You don't go to Manhattan,
you go to "The City."

When you're away from Long Island, you love it
and when you're there, you don't.

You think if you're not from Long Island or NYC,
you're not really from New York.

You know the exact point at which Queens
turns into Nassau simply on intuition.

You never realize you have an accent
til you leave.

Everything north of the Bronx is "upstate."
New Jersey sucks.

At some point in your life
you've gone clamming.

Either your parents or your
grandparents lived in the city.

You'd pay $11.50 for a movie.

You don't live in Long Island
you live ON Long Island

Your distant future might
involve the state of Florida

You can correctly pronounce places like
Ronkonkoma, Hauppauge, Wantagh, Mineola,
Islandia, Massapequa

You know the location of 6 malls
and a dozen McDonalds and 36 7-11's.

You never, ever want to
"change at Jamaica..."

You've tried to find the
Amityville Horror house.

No, you don't want mustard
on that burger!!

You can't understand why a
diner would ever close.

You've had a seagull
crap on your car.

You have or someone you know
has fallen asleep on the LIRR
and ended up in one of these
three places; Babylon, Port
Washington or Hicksville.

You know White Castle is terrible for you
and the food sucks but you periodically
"Get the Crave".

You want the Yankees to stay in the Bronx,
but would probably go to more games if
they moved to Manhattan.

You think that somehow, the Jets and
Giants still play in New York.

You've missed that "Drunk Train",
the 2:42 out of Penn and had the dreaded
wait until 5:30.

You or someone you know has owned an animal
that came from North Shore Animal League.

Quick! Who's your county Executive?
Don't know do you?!

You've never taken an MTA bus.

The Long Island Expressway isn't really
as bad as everybody thinks.

You know which parts of the godfather
were filmed on Long Island.

You think Islip MacArthur airport is cute,
and you enjoy watching it grow up.

Billy Joel said it best,
"either you date a rich girl from
The North Shore, or a cool girl
from the South Shore."

You don't really see the big deal
about the Hamptons, unless you got
smashed at the Bordy Barn.

When people ask "where are you from?"
You answer Long Guy Land and
automatically assume everyone in the
world knows that answer means New York.

You've always liked Billy Joel and
you own several of his "records."

The Belt Parkway sucks! You've been
stuck in a traffic jam for more
than 2 hours (without moving).

Your parents took you to All American,
Nathan's or Carvel (on the way home
from the beach).

Regular gas - $3.29 and you
still pay it!!!

You hate paying tolls.

You don't have to go far to
see your family.

You remember Grumman.

You know the color of the water
at Jones Beach is not BLUE!

You were upset when all the
Roy Rogers turned into Wendy's
and Arby's closed for good.

You can spout off all the LIRR
stops between Penn Station and
Huntington.

Paying $35 for a haircut
doesn't sound so crazy.

You think the people from Brooklyn are
"DA wunz dat tawk wit a accent."

You went sledding in the sumps.

You knew of Massapequa before The Amy
Fisher-Joey Buttafuoco nightmare.

You think going to Queens is a hike.

The first time you heard the term
"Long Island Iced Tea" you were
somewhere else and you laughed.

When you live somewhere else and are
astounded to see that people actually
stop at yellow lights.

When you just sort of presume that
wherever you live, you'll be able
to find good delis, good pizza,
and good bagels.*

You can name at least three bands
that came from Long Island.

When you walk in the city and you
see two men holding hands...
it becomes normal to you.

No word ends in an ER, just an AH.

You actually get these jokes
and pass them on to other
friends from Long Island.

-------

*I sooooo miss New York's delis,
pizza, bagels, AND Chinese Food.

PS If you know who should be
credited with this list, please
let me know. I was unable to
find attribution.

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