Overheard In New York

It’s Even Hard for Grownups to Grasp

Obese black woman, ex­plain­ing 9/11 to sev­en-year-old daugh­ter: We talk about this every day, hon­ey. The end­ing’s not gonna change.
Daugh­ter: They put up the flag up af­ter? Did­n’t it get dirty?
Obese black woman: Well, they kin­da had more im­por­tant things to deal with. They did­n’t have a wash­ing ma­chine there.

–R Train

Over­heard by: Jon A.

Wednes­day One-Lin­ers You Can Dance to

Dude: He’s the black, blind Mo­town equiv­a­lent of Ken­ny G.

–113th & Am­s­ter­dam

Over­heard by: Wild Dog Boy

Girl, while leav­ing screen­ing of “I am leg­end”: Okay… I can­not be­lieve the woman did not know Bob Mar­ley! I mean, that had to be the most un­re­al­is­tic thing in that en­tire film.

–Fresh Mead­ows, Queens

Over­heard by: hm­mm…

Curly-haired chick: Has New Or­der be­come an okay kinky sex back­ground band? Am I *old*?

–113th & Broad­way

Over­heard by: Poo­gins

Guy, stand­ing next to guy lis­ten­ing to Jour­ney on his iPod: Get away from me! Just get the fuck away from me!

–2 Train

Dumb girl dressed like Scary Spice en route to the con­cert: Yeah, a lot of peo­ple think that the Spice Girls like, re­in­stat­ed fem­i­nism.

–NJ Tran­sit

Yale grad: Em­inem has a won­der­ful sense of me­ter.

–Court St., Brook­lyn

Over­heard by: Justin Case­ment

Queer: We on­ly stayed for 15 min­utes, I’m not that in­to karaoke. And when a coven of les­bians start cast­ing their spells to “My Sharona”, I was out­ta there.”

–Cham­bers & Green­wich

Over­heard by: Grand Witch Muffy

You’ll Prob­a­bly Work Here Some Day.

Moth­er at win­dow to cry­ing eight-year-old boy: Hsst! Stop! Act like a hu­man, not an an­i­mal! Or I won’t bring you here with me again.
(boy keeps cry­ing be­cause his sis­ter stole his toy)
Moth­er to boy, as they leave: Now, you know you’ve been a very an­noy­ing lit­tle per­son, don’t you?

–Post Of­fice, Brook­lyn

Over­heard by: Kather­ine

What is Hard­core? (NYC Short Sto­ries)

Girl: Wow, last night I was so drunk. I can’t be­lieve that I got so
wast­ed off on­ly a pint of gin. In first year I could drink like twice that amount and par­ty all night.
Guy: So you were hard­core then?
Girl: Naw, I was­n’t hard­core, I was just an id­iot.

–NYU A bus

Guy: Have you ever drank the worm?
Girl: Oh, hell yeah. And that’s hard­core ’cause I’m a veg­e­tar­i­an.

–Mc­Cabe’s Liquor Store, 3rd Av­enue

…In the 1800s

Girl: Oh my god, I just found out that my high school dra­ma teacher has been sleep­ing with the kid who’s the star in all of the shows.
Boy: Shit!
Girl: Yeah, I heard they’re both in jail now or some­thing.
Boy: That’s like the time that fam­i­ly in my town had those slaves.

–Crowd­ed El­e­va­tor, NYU

Over­heard by: con­fused