Employee: Welcome to Staples! Can I help you find something?
Lucky guy: Yeah, actually — staples.
–Staples, Union Square
Employee: Welcome to Staples! Can I help you find something?
Lucky guy: Yeah, actually — staples.
–Staples, Union Square
Old lady covered in baby powder: Give me six donuts.
Donuts clerk: Okay, which ones?
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts.
Donuts clerk: These are all donuts… Which ones?
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts.
Donuts clerk: Okay, I'll just give you a selection of six. (starts putting random donuts in bag)
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts, don't trick me.
–Flatbush, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Save the Whales, Save the Whole Thing
Salad guy: I have bleu cheese and goat cheese, too.
Customer: What’s bleu cheese?
Salad guy: It’s a sad cheese.
–Hale & Hearty Soup
20-something woman: Do you have decaffeinated tea?
Waitress: Yes.
20-something woman: Does it have caffeine in it?
Waitress: No?
–86th & York
Overheard by: Silently Amused
Animated blonde salesgirl: If you get the apple pomegranate body butter…
Weary brunette: I only see the display.
Animated blonde salesgirl: We have more in the back. Okay, well, if you get two or more products from the bath line, like this and our shower gel, you get a free bathtub!
Weary brunette: Huh?
(animated blonde salesgirl points to a little plastic bathtub)
Weary brunette: That's… tiny. Like, I love the scent but I'm afraid I don't have any kittens or fetuses to bathe in that tiny tiny tub.
–Sephora, Times Square
White male customer: I want a small black coffee.
East Indian female cashier: Do you want cream and sugar in that?
White male customer: No, I want it black.
East Indian female cashier: Black?
White male customer, pointing at picture of black man in ad on the wall: Yes, black! I want it to look like that guy!
–Dunkin’ Donuts, 53rd & Lex
Overheard by: next in line
Spazzed customer: Yo, dude, I need something to help me concentrate. I have to take a really big test and then I can forget it all. I have to take the bar — have you heard of that? It’s for being a lawyer.
Employee: Um, well, we have this herbal product to increase the blood flow to your brain.
Spazzed customer: Can I smoke pot with it?
Employee: Uh, sure.
Spazzed customer: Great. You take credit cards?
Employee: Yeah.
Spazzed customer: Great, thanks [leaves the store without buying anything].
–GNC, Astoria
Woman getting haircut: So it all began when I was dating an Italian underwear model…
Hairdresser (after a short pause): Yes?
Woman: He was the worst fuck of my life!
–Institu Salon, 19th & Irving
Yankee fan: Yeah, I'll have a grilled chicken sandwich and a vanilla iced coffee.
Apathetic cashier: Crispy chicken sandwich?
Yankee fan: No, grilled, sorry about that–I thought I said grilled.
Apathetic cashier: And you wanted a Diet Coke?
Yankee fan: No, a vanilla iced coffee.
Cashier: Oh.
–McDonald's, Yankee Stadium
Overheard by: Rachel W.
Storeworker: Can’t you at least pick up what you dropped?
Customer: I can’t bend. I have a bad back.
Storeworker: Why don’t you pretend it’s a ten dollar bill? Bet you’d dive pretty quick for that, wouldn’t you?
–Marshall’s, Bensonhurst
Overheard by: Deborah Olin
