Overheard In New York

Archive for the ‘Public Transportation’ Category

You Can’t Judge a Wednes­day by Its One-Lin­er

Col­lege stu­dent: This is the best Barnes & No­ble I’ve ever seen!

–Bor­ders, Time Warn­er Cen­ter

Stu­dent: So, the au­thor of the Tao Te Ching, Lao-low… Fuck it, we’re call­ing him L‑train.

–Eu­gene Lang Col­lege

Over­heard by: Hark­er

Large woman with friends: Oh, girl, I got to tell you about this book I’m read­ing. It’s off the hook! They’re send­ing in this un­der­cov­er agent, and I think it’s his sis­ter, but he’s all get­ting ready to have sex with her!

–White Cas­tle, 36th & 8th

Over­heard by: Dun­can Pflaster

Woman on phone: I was in Union Square, so I stopped in Barnes & No­ble. (pause) Nig­ga, I can read!

–Union Square

Lit­tle British boy: Oh my good­ness, dad, look! They have books on dat­ing. How to Date? is prob­a­bly like, “Don’t take her to Mc­Don­ald’s!”

–Barnes & No­ble

Over­heard by: Lau­ra

Tat­tooed art­sy guy, putting hand on art­sy Asian girl’s shoul­der: I read your book and re­al­ly liked it… lot­ta piss­ing, huh?

–Mott & Prince

The Sum Of All Wednes­day One-Lin­ers

Woman on cell: And when my broth­er got near him, his poop came out. That’s how scared he was.

–107th & Broad­way

Woman on cell: So yeah, they are re­al­ly scary, like if you walk in the house they will bark re­al­ly loud, and that’s to­tal­ly worse than them bit­ing you.

–Ma­jes­tic The­ater

Girl on cell: I went in for ge­net­ic coun­sel­ing and I found out things that scared me.

–10th Ave & 39th St

Over­heard by: Todd Fletch­er

Girl on cell: No, you can’t go! I’m too stoned and too scared. Just stay on the phone with me, please.

–Su­per­mar­ket, As­to­ria

Con­duc­tor: Nev­er fear! The phan­tom of the train is here!

–7 Train

Over­heard by: Alex

Wednes­day Con­ga Lin­ers

Man on cell: Yeah, so do you know that show Danc­ing with the Stars? They got the idea for it from the cam­era in my show­er.

–6th Ave & 55th St

Over­heard by: Ali­cia

Ag­ing badass to la­dy friend: Yeah, I to­tal­ly got es­cort­ed out of a Tom Pet­ty con­cert for danc­ing in the aisles.

–17th St & 5th Ave

Over­heard by: Orig­i­nal Badass

Black guy: Hey every­body! Stop what you’re do­ing! There’s two black guys about to dance on this train! That’s some­thing you don’t see of­ten!

–A Train

Flam­boy­ant gay man to friend: You can’t sashay in there. There’s no room to sashay at all.

–Out­side LGBT Com­mu­ni­ty Cen­ter, dur­ing Fur Ball

Over­heard by: pan­darants

Drunk Asian girl: It’s al­ways time to dance in North Ko­rea.

–2nd St & Ave B

There’s No Cry­ing in Wednes­day One-Lin­ers!

Con­duc­tor: This is Wil­lets Point/Shea Sta­di­um. You know, home of the oth­er team. (pas­sen­gers laugh) You may laugh, but we all know no one re­al­ly likes the Mets. Any­hoo, have a nice day, every­one. Stand clear of the clos­ing doors.

–7 Train

Over­heard by: Kris­ten

20-some­thing guy wear­ing Red Sox hat to girl­friend: There’s no way we can have kids in New York. They’d be go­ing to school with a bunch of brain­washed Yan­kee fan off­spring, and every night we’d have to be telling them bed­time sto­ries that end with “and they all lived hap­pi­ly every af­ter, ex­cept for Derek Jeter, be­cause he’s a fuckin’ ass­hole.”

–1 Train

Young woman on cell: I’m from New York, but live in Boston, but want to move back to New York… It’s hard be­ing a Yan­kees fan sur­round­ed by fuck­ing Red Sox fans. I can’t do it any­more.

–L Train

Over­heard by: I agree…

Sub­way con­duc­tor: Yan­kees fans. This is a Bronx-bound ex­press D. This will not stop at Yan­kee sta­di­um. Trans­fer at the next sta­tion to the B. (20 min­utes lat­er) Yan­kees fans. I promise you this train will not stop at Yan­kee sta­di­um. You can trans­fer to the B at the next sta­tion. Or you could just not go to the game. The choice is yours.

–D Train

20-some­thing moth­er to an­oth­er, try­ing hard to look knowl­edge­able: The Yan­kees and Mets are play­ing two games to­day, the first at Yan­kee sta­di­um and the sec­ond at Fen­way, where the Mets play.

–Barnes & No­ble Cafe

Woman in Je­sus t‑shirt: Je­sus hates the Yan­kees.

–Up­town C Train

Over­heard by: Pen­ny

Con­duc­tor to packed train: At­ten­tion, at­ten­tion pas­sen­gers. To all Yan­kee fans on this train, please have a safe day to­day, and en­joy the game. Per­son­al­ly, I am a Red Sox fan. That is all.

–Up­town 4 Train

At Least Wednes­day One-Lin­ers Are Pret­ty

Girl to friend: I won­der what’s the dif­fer­ence be­tween hard tacos and soft tacos.

–Line at Taco Bell, Queens Mall Food Court

Over­heard by: NTA

Guy talk­ing to his friend: I don’t be­lieve there is a first time for every­thing, but I do think there is a first time for any­thing.

–2nd St & Ave B

Over­heard by: Max Berlinger

Girl on cell in hall­way: She told me to get bac­te­r­i­al soap.

–Ford­ham Uni­ver­si­ty, Rose Hill

Over­heard by: Kriszti­na ‚who us­es an­ti-bac­te­r­i­al

Sub­way co­me­di­an: My wife is so stu­pid. I told her to take the 2 train, she took the 1 twice. [Awk­ward si­lence fol­lows. Co­me­di­an pro­ceeds to dance around a sub­way pole pre­tend­ing to be a strip­per.]

–1 Train

Over­heard by: Sub­way rid­er

Guy on cell: Dude, you’ve got to stop do­ing this “liv­ing pay­check to pay­check” thing be­cause every time you get a check it’s like an emo­tion­al high­way.

–Co­lum­bia Uni­ver­si­ty Cam­pus

Over­heard by: Ali­na

Col­lege girl, af­ter clos­ing a Nutel­la jar: I solved it! I solved the puz­zle!

–Broome St

Over­heard by: YJL