Mother, to twelve-year-old daughter: Megan! Get back here!
Four-year-old boy: Mommy, Megan is trying to cross the street cuz she hates you.
Mother, bitterly: No, Megan is trying to cross the street because she wants to get hit by a car.
Four-year-old: If you get hit by a car you’d be dead, then you have to go to the hospital.
Mother, despondent: I don’t think you even understand death.
–Broadway
Girl: Like, my grandmother got stabbed with an ice pick by her brother. And then they were estranged for years.
–Bobst Library, Washington Square South
Man helping woman carry stroller down stairs: If you had taken the bloody pill when you said you were taking it, we wouldn’t be in this mess in the first place.
–Broadway-Lafayette B/D/F/V Station
Overheard by: Jon A.
Man walking with girlfriend, loudly: Wait, did you bring your diaphragm?
–Times Square
Loud woman on cell: How many times do you have to have sex, and have a baby, before you realize: “If I have sex without a condom I will get someone pregnant.”? Seriously!
–Broadway & 103rd St
Overheard by: Amy
Guy on phone: I always tell people that sex with you with a condom is better than sex with other girls without a condom.
–Outside Trader Joe’s, 14th St
Zoo guide: This zoo likes to be careful with breeding animals by taking into account genes and the like. But then again, Zippy–the baby snow monkey–came along. So be careful with your birth control.
–Central Park Zoo, by the Snow Monkeys
Girl to another: I just don’t see why we can’t make our own condoms.
–14th St & 4th Ave
Little girl reaching for Peanut M&Ms: I want penis!
Mother: You better stop that!
Little girl: I want penis!
Stranger: Just give it to her, for Christ’s sake!
–Manhattan-bound L train
Older man: You get on my nerves… You get on my nerves, and I do not want to be arrested for beating a child.
Kid, cheerfully: You won’t!
–Staples, Broadway & 184th St
Overheard by: prefers them over easy
Little girl: Where are we going now?
Mother: Chinatown.
Little girl: Vagina town?
Mother, chuckling: No — China-town.
Little girl, coyly: Well, I live in peeenis-town.
Mother: Okay, Lila.
–Union Square
Overheard by: S.S.
Little boy: (making loud fake chewing noises progressively getting louder)
Mom: Quiet down now!
Little boy: But mom, look, I’m chewing my arm!
–Manhattan Express Bus #9
Overheard by: Jessica R
Little girl, in very loud voice: Mommy, how old are you?
Older woman: Twenty-two.
Little girl: No, you’re not! You’re like fifty something!
–JFK
Little girl: Ew, sex, gross!
Mother: Sex isn’t gross. It’s natural and it can be a very beautiful thing.
Little girl: You wouldn’t say that if you heard what Eleanor told me.
–N train
Overheard by: Tom Brigham
Mom on stoop: Don’t you skate too far from the house!
Four-year-old boy on skateboard: Moooooooom! Go insiiiiide the hoooooouse! I don’t need you!
Mom neighbor: Did he just tell me to go inside the house? Boy, you just wait till *you* come inside the house!
–Monroe & Franklin, Bed-Stuy
Overheard by: Tigertail
Hat Tip 🎩 to The Marketing Scientist
