20-something Puerto Rican on cell: We’re walking to the court right now. Yeah, he is an asshole, she’s gonna get an order of protection.
20-something black woman, yelling: Yeah, I am tired of his violent shit!
20-something Puerto Rican: Uh-huh, but we’re gonna get a patty first. She’s hungry.
–Jamaica Ave & 153rd St, Queens
Overheard by: walking to court
Student, about her play: I want the audience to enter through the vagina before they sit down.
–NYU
Guy to younger girl, at intermission of Spring Awakening, right after sex scene: So you had to choose this? We couldn’t have gone to see The Little Mermaid?
–Eugene O’Neill Theatre
College student: …exactly how you’d expect a college rendition of The Vagina Monologues to go.
–NYU
Black guy on cell: It doesn’t mean I’m gay because I’m going to see a play. (pause) It’s for a class… There’s nothing wrong with wanting to see a play.
–Union Square
Overheard by: erkala
20-something guy to friend: Picture it; Fishsticks: the musicical!
–63rd St & Broadway
Black chick: What’d bring me to? Once you seen Queen Latifah you don’t need to see this shit.
Black guy: I’m tryin’ to fill you with some culture.
Black chick: Why don’t you fill my closet with Prada?
–Ambassador Theatre, West 49th Street
Staten Island chick: These kids used to go the playground by my house and wind a rope around the merry-go-round and then tie it to the bumper of their car and drive away so the thing would spin outta control – like really fast – until one time some girl got thrown like 20 feet and she died. Then they took it out.
Brother #1: What? Wait, she died? How old was she? Like a kid? How old? How old?
Brother #2: She was 92. She had a full life so you really can’t feel all that bad.
–50th & 6th
Yuppie kid: Mommy shaves her hoo-hoo!
Yuppie dad: Okay, honey. Look, do you want your book?
Yuppie kid: I came in the bathroom this morning and asked Mommy what she was doing and she said shaving her hoo-hoo. Mommy shaves her hoo-hoo!
Yuppie dad: Dylan, remember when we discussed at-home conversations and outside conversations?
Yuppie kid: Yes.
Yuppie dad: Well, this is an at-home conversation.
Yuppie kid: Okay, daddy. [Sings to herself quietly] Mommmyyy shaves her hoo-hooo…
Black lady: See, home conversating, outside conversating — that’s bullshit. My kid says shit like that, I smack him. He won’t say shit like that again.
Yuppie dad: Okay, thank you, but I think our method works just fine.
Yuppie kid: Lady, do you shave your hoo-hoo?
Black lady: Oh, yeah, that shit is workin’ just fine. She’s all kinds of polite.
Yuppie dad: Okay, Dylan, this is our stop.
–R train
Overheard by: SandmanEsq
Black girl: I’m just going to remain celibate until I meet a nice-looking white man.
Friend: Look how fast he’s walking away!
–Garfield & 7th Ave, Park Slope
Overheard by: Mark S
Black dude #1: Hey, snowflakes!
Black dude #2: Wanna drink some nigga juice tonight?
White chick #1 to friend: Are you sure you feel safe walking back by yourself?
White chick #2: Yeah, I usually don’t get harassed this much. I think it’s just because there are two of us.
White chick #1: So it’s exponential?
White chick #2: Exactly. Right now, we’re whiteness, squared.
–116th & Lex
Overheard by: blinded by the light
Younger black man with suitcase: I just want you all to know that I am getting on the train with a suspicious package.
Older black man, not looking up from his newspaper: Nigga, that is the stupidest thing you could have said.
–Downtown 1 train
Overheard by: observing on the 1
Drunk: Where’s my boy, man?
–Odessa, Ave. A
Three white guys are dressed in prison uniforms.
Huge black guy: Those mothafuckas wouldn’t last a second in Attica.
–Penn Station
Overheard by: acep
Guy on cell: Jeff, it’s me. Quick question — when you get arrested, do you lose all of your civil liberties or just some? … ‘Cause these guys won’t leave me the fuck alone…
–Staten Island Ferry
Drunk Fordham student: Have you ever been in a Mexican prison? You have no idea what it’s like in a Mexican prison!
–Pugsley’s
Overheard by: Rachel Hoban
Lady on cell: He just graduated from culinary school, and he said he got the best job in the class. He’s the chef at Michigan State Prison.
–Broadway & Spring St
Girl, after lady bumps into her: I mean, if God bumps into me, that’s one thing — I wouldn’t say nothing, ’cause that’s God, you know? But she ain’t God, and I’m about to go to jail over her ass.
–Target, Brooklyn
Overheard by: santos
Hat Tip 🎩 to The Marketing Scientist