Keep the weird "compliments" to yourself!

Some homespun wisdom

Mary (left) and Eileen—just a couple of homespun gals.

She was probably in her mid-thirties, blonde, sitting at a table with a few friends. (They’d been playing “Native New Yorker” incessantly on the jukebox, and clearly— they weren’t.) “I’ll take another vodka red bull,” she slurred, slapping a $20 down on the bar and glancing around. “How long has this place been here?” I looked at my colleague Mary, and mouthed “last one” as I mixed her drink. “The bar opened in 1936,” I replied, garnishing her drink with a slice of lime and sliding it across the bar. She took a sip, blearily squinting at Mary and me, then asked, ”Hey… have you two worked here since the beginning?” I picked up her $20 and rang it into the register, “Um…no,” I sighed, “not quite that long.” Mary laughed, adding “Sometimes it feels like it, though!” The blonde picked up her change, and headed back to the table. Over her shoulder she chirped, “Are you sisters—cause you two look homespun!”

I ducked around the corner to google “homespun” (I wasn’t absolutely sure) and then read the definition to Mary: “Homespun: Simple, unsophisticated, unpolished, plain, rustic.” I was all ready to be outraged, but then Mary pointed out that it was kind of true, actually. “On the nose, “ I think, were her exact words. Then we had a good laugh, and decided there were far worse things to be in this world.

Like an authoritarian asshole, for instance.

You're a native New Yorker
You should know the score by now
You're a native New Yorker