Overheard In New York

Archive for 2007

Fight or Flight — Every Sol­dier Knows It

Kid: I don’t got no en­er­gy for dodge­ball.
Speech ther­a­pist: You don’t have any en­er­gy for dodge­ball? There’s al­ways en­er­gy for dodge­ball. [Kid looks con­fused.] Trust me, there’s al­ways room for JELL‑O, and there is al­ways en­er­gy for dodge­ball. It’s the law.

–P.S. 31, Queens

Over­heard by: Won­der­ing what that ses­sion was like

Read My Mind, and I’ll Pun­ish You If You’re Wrong

Pro­fes­sor point­ing at a slide of Andy Warhol’s Elvis and one of a gi­ant moun­tain: Can any­one tell me what the sim­i­lar­i­ties and dif­fer­ences of these two im­ages are?
Stu­dent #1: The Warhol print is com­plete­ly com­mer­cial, while the moun­tain is very nat­ur­al.
Pro­fes­sor: Yes, that’s one way to see them. Any­one else?
Stu­dent #2: One’s a big rock, and one’s the king of rock.
Pro­fes­sor: I think we can all go home now.

–NYU

Over­heard by: Ad­di­son

They Al­ways Have Can­dy!

Blonde: We need to cov­er loads of ground if we want an agent to poach us.
Friend: Why can’t we just go pay for one?
Blonde: They to­tal­ly just walk the streets look­ing for hot peo­ple and pay them to be­come mod­els.
Friend: And what are the odds we are gonna just run in­to one?
Blonde: Trust me, they’re every­where. They dri­ve around in vans look­ing for peo­ple to au­di­tion.
Friend: Please tell me you haven’t been picked up by one of these ‘agents’ be­fore!

–Brook­lyn Heights Prom­e­nade

Gonna Be a Long Child­hood

Tweak­er mom: Can I get my but­ter, please? I paid for my but­ter, and I’m tak­ing my but­ter. I paid for it, I tipped for it, and I’m tak­ing it [gets but­ter, then starts yank­ing child out the door].
Young daugh­ter: Mom­my, you don’t even like but­ter.

–Sun­ny & An­nie Deli, 6th St & Ave B

Can’t Wait to Hear the Too-Per­son­al Part

Chub­by girl: I don’t do well with fin­gers in my ass, but I’m pret­ty good with balls in my mouth. I’ll tell you a sto­ry, but if it gets too per­son­al just tell me to stop.
Nerdy boy: Al­right.
Chub­by girl: I was at Ja­son’s house, and, mind you, we were in an awk­ward po­si­tion — kind of half-sit­ting, half-lay­ing down — but it’s al­ways awk­ward when you’re half asleep, you know? Well, we start­ed kiss­ing, and then my neg­ligee fell down. It lit­er­al­ly fell down be­low my breasts. And Ja­son was like, ‘I don’t know if I’m com­fort­able with your top­less­ness…’

–6 train

Why Not? He Wears Girl Keds and He’s Par­tial­ly Hy­dro­genat­ed

Boy: I was try­ing to tack­le him, I just could­n’t get my– I just could­n’t get my hands around him. I just could­n’t squeeze his legs to­geth­er… just could­n’t… I just could­n’t get my hands around. Oh! And there’s this kid, and we call him ‘Trans­fat­ty’ be­cause you don’t know whether he’s a boy or a girl, and he’s like, a fat kid and that’s why we made up this nick­name for him — Trans­fat­ty!
Soc­cer dad: You don’t re­al­ly call him that, do you?

–El­e­va­tor, 92nd & 3rd