Practical Reasons to Love New York

Have I banged on alot about why I love living here? Cant' remember, but a couple of incidents this morning prompted me to write a list of 10 practical reasons why I adore living here. Some of these reasons apply to the US in general, but here goes:

• When you call the New York Times, instead of being put on hold if there is wait, you can leave your phone number and they will call you back when your place in the queue comes up. My call came in less than 5 minutes
• The department stores and most other stores give full refunds even on sale items. That means there is absolutely no excuse for wardrobe mistakes. The salesperson at Lanvin (ok, the only reason I was able to shop there was because there were price reductions of up to 75%) told me how a good customer brought back a dress 4 seasons old. You have to admit that is taking serious liberties.
• If you log onto delivery.com, you can have anything you dream of delivered to your front door in an hour. Try tampons, tulips or Timberwolf dog food!
• opentable.com allows you to reserve even the most prestigious table in Manhattan without having to ring around to all the individual restaurants to find a table.
• All online purchases arrive at your door with complimentary return shipping. Ralph Lauren arrives in a heavenly dark navy gift box with gold foil lettering and grosgrain ribbon!
• With the ease of a magnetic card, Zipcar lets you rent a car where you want, when you want. So if I suddenly decide I want to drive to the country at 11pm at night, all I need to do is make an online reservation and then pick up my car from the location around the corner with a swipe of the card.
• The subway runs 24 hours a day.
• Duane Reade is also open 24 hours a day and is found on every corner, so you are never out of flu medicine, midnight snacks or toilet paper.
• Netflix means no ugly DVR on your TV console. Instead, you can stream all your favorite films straight to your computer or TV for as little as $9 a month
• Doormen. The rest is self explanatory. Wish I'd met mine earlier in life.

What does all this add up to? Making life easier. And goodness knows, we all need that!