NOT a True New Yorker

I went to the TimeOut NY website today in search of some good summery activities. The website is not the most user-friendly (read: too much stuff, yet not easy to find) and I got distracted when I came across the "Are You a True New Yorker" quiz.

I am a sucker for personality tests.

Now, I have lived here for the past 15 years. I like to think that I've been around the city block a few times. I was not concerned about my New York-ness. Hell, I lived here during 9/11, the blackout, the transit strike, that guy with the tiger in his apartment and before Williamsburg was completely overrun with dirty looking hipsters. Even before Target came to the 5 boroughs, for god's sake.

After answering all of the questions (and there were several pages of them), what was the verdict?

I was one step above a tourist.

WHAT!?

Needless to say, I was deeply offended. I mean, really, WTF?

Here's a sampling of questions:

• Have personal waterbug and rat horror story. CHECK.
• Be unable to leave the house in the morning without watching NY1. (I heart Pat Kiernan.) CHECK.
• Adopt a piece of furniture you found on the street. CHECK.
• Go to the Bronx for something other than a baseball game. CHECK. (shout out to SMark in SoBro!)

Those are fair questions, right? Well, I think these are the ones that demoted me to almost a tourist:

• Order what the people sitting at the next table in the Chinese restaurant are having—without knowing what it is. I'm Chinese, I know what the hell to order. IN CHINESE, IF NEEDED.

• Buy an umbrella that's just gone up in price to $10, and then leave it in a cab. Point #1: See above regarding NY1. Which means that I watch the weather on the 1s. So I know when it's going to rain and thus bring an umbrella. Or use the one I keep at work just in case, thus avoiding the need to buy an overpriced, poor quality umbrella from a man selling them out of a grandma cart. Point #2: I don't leave shit in cabs. I always look back as I'm exiting.

• Be approached by a heroin addict on a bicycle pretending to be a PA on a commercial shoot who has no money to get to work—and be impressed enough with his hustle that you don't mind forking over 15 bucks. Again, I must exclaim, WTF!?