My FAVORITE section of the New York Times....

IS called METROPOLITAN DIARY

Here is a sample:

METROPOLITAN DIARY

Published: December 4, 2006

DEAR DIARY:
I was trying on clothes in Filene's, on Broadway and 79th Street, when I overheard the following conversation between a mother and child in the next cubicle:
''I like this cage, Mom.''
''It's not a cage, dear. It's a dressing room.''
''You look great in that dress, Mom.''
''No, I'm not getting it. I don't look good in pink.''
''But I love it. You could just wear it when we're home alone.'' Eva Oppenheim

Dear Diary:

While waiting for friends at a local restaurant, this is the conversation I heard while the barmaid was uncorking a bottle of red wine:
Patron: ''Do you have to chill red wine?''
Barmaid: ''No, only white wine.''
Patron: ''Why do you chill white wine?''
Barmaid: ''Because it's like Coke.'' Louis T. Iacovino Dear Diary:
Waiting to order in the bagel store, I noticed that the man in front of me was buying some prepackaged nova.
I asked him if he'd had it before. He said he had.
I asked, ''How was it?''
He answered, ''For an emergency, it was O.K.'' Alice Brickner

Dear Diary:
Pickup lines have to change with the times. One of the best I heard recently occurred around twilight one Saturday evening as a sport-utility vehicle was rounding the corner of Second Avenue and 52nd Street.
A pretty young girl at the corner was chatting on her cellphone, waiting for the light to change. A young man leaned out the passenger window of the turning car and said: ''Hey. You going to be on that phone long?'' Carol Lippert Gray

Dear Diary:
While waiting for the light at the corner of 23rd Street and Second Avenue, I became aware of a group of preschoolers obviously out on a class trip.
Instead of the usual all-hold-hands drill one is used to seeing, they were tethered to one another with those bungeelike cords that strap things to the roofs and backs of cars.
When the light changed, the teacher in the lead yelled, ''Go!'' and the kids crossed the street like miniature climbers scaling a horizontal mountain, leaving a sidewalk of grinning adults in their wake. Mary-Ellen Banashek

Dear Diary:
When my daughter started violin lessons at age 4, someone told her the old line about how the way to Carnegie Hall is ''practice, practice, practice.'' She immediately responded, ''No, it's not. You take the 104.''
Her lessons were at the French-American Conservatory in the Carnegie Hall building, and that is the bus we always took. Elizabeth Kopczynski Moore


Dear Diary:
Recently, my parents were visiting from California and we went to a Sunday matinee. Afterward, my dad wanted to go to Sardi's for a drink. Once we got settled at a table, I went to the bar and stood next to a couple sitting on the end as I ordered the drinks. ''Three Stoli Bloody Marys, please.''
The couple looked at me and then turned in unison to see where I had come from, spotting my parents. I said, ''I bet you thought I was going to drink all of those myself.''
The woman said, ''I was going to say it must have been a pretty bad show!'' Beth Hallo

Dear Diary:
I had just moved from California to the Upper West Side, and was in a neighborhood store, purchasing some plants for my new apartment. In front of me in line were two older New York couples.
The wife of the first couple said to the man behind the counter: ''Got anything for squirrels? I don't want to kill them; I just want to scare them away.''
To which her husband replied: ''I want to kill them. What do you have to kill them?''
The second couple, behind them, interjected, ''Where do you live?'' It was determined that they all lived within one city block of each other.
The next question: ''What does your squirrel look like?'' After some discussion, it was agreed that it was the same squirrel.
''That's him,'' wife No. 2 said. ''He's got a feisty stance, and beady eyes.'' To which her husband then suggested: ''Let's kill him together.''
The man behind the counter said, ''We're not killing squirrels here, ladies and gentlemen. This is Manhattan. We all got to get along.'' Naomi Starkman

Dear Diary:
I was walking to work this morning when I saw a huge group of out-of-town students filling the street corner on Eighth Avenue and 56th Street.
As I was squeezing my way by them, I saw two teenage girls looking up Eighth Avenue at the start of Central Park. One girl turned to the other and asked, ''Is that the end of the city?'' Alice Oglethorpe