Teacher #1: What do they want me to do with my students? They expect me to be able to teach them and they are always late or absent.
Teacher #2: Yeah, my students are always getting shot or something and then they want special treatment and a make-up test.
Teacher #1: Yeah, I know what you mean — they must be gang members.
–86th & Broadway
Pissed off gay guy on phone: What should you have said? Oh, I don’t know, maybe "Hi, I’m Michael, I have syphilis!"
–13th & Broadway
Guy: That’d be a great gig, but I don’t know if you want to be the face of venereal disease.
–Cafe Esperanto
Woman coming off train: Get away from me! You got AIDS on yo’ dick!
–R Train
Overheard by: going to the clinic
Chick: As long as it’s not AIDS it’s okay. I’m vaccinated against everything except AIDS.
–Columbia University
20-something male talking to friend: You know the way I see it: AIDS will kill you, herpes is just an inconvenience…
–34th between 2nd and 3rd
Overheard by: LadyEDdy
Columbia student, on her public health exam: I just didn’t know where to put the gonorrhea! It had to go somewhere, I just couldn’t figure out where!
–School of Public Heatlh, Columbia University
Loud guy: So he gave her a venereal disease. That’s not a reason to marry her!
–Blue Hill Restaurant
Professor: So when humans evolved to bipedalism and were walking on two legs instead of four, their sexual practices changed and they began to have face to face sex.
Guy in back of class: Well, I mean… it's not always face to face.
Professor: Well, it tends to be the most common and most comfortable way for bipeds to have sex.
(long pause)
Professor: I assume by your silence that you disagree.
–Barnard
Overheard by: You had to say that to the Prof???
Big guy: My grandmother is a science teacher, my father is a math teacher, and my brother is going to be a professor.
Little chick: And you want to be an actor — what a disappointment.
Big guy: Well, if the acting thing doesn’t work out, I’ll be a gym teacher, because those who can’t do, teach. And those who can’t teach, teach gym.
–Olive Garden, Times Square
Overheard by: teetee
Loud Dominican kid #1: Yo, that girl Adriana…
Loud Dominican kid #2: Who, that white girl?
Loud Dominican kid #3: Yeahhhh, with the big titties?
Loud Dominican kid #1: Yeaaahhh, she was, like, leaning over helpin' me with a problem and I was like “yeaaahhhh…”
Loud Dominican kid: Word?
Loud Dominican kid #2: She got like c-cups…
Loud Dominican kid #3: Wait, I don't, like, know the alphabet…
–L Train
Overheard by: Larson
Two black guys get onto the train with congo drums and play.
Drums guy #1: Yo, thanks y’all for listenin’. We hope you can donate something to our cause to support our music. Let me tell y’all something…I’m gonna teach you something you ain’t gonna get from no college, from no book, from no studyin’, from no professor…you could have all the money and richness in the world, but if you have compassion, then you are the richest person in the world. You gotta have compassion for your fellow human beings–man, everything is relative–and once you realize that, then you understand compassion!…See, this gentleman here, he didn’t like our music and that’s cool. You didn’t like it, did you sir?
Suit: Actually, I did.
Drums guy #1: Aw, man! You shouldn’t have said that! That makes it worse that you don’t wanna help support our music! You don’t understand what it’s like out here.
Suit: Yes, I do. I’m a musician too. We’re all trying to make it.
Drums guy #1: Man! How can you say that? We like brothers, man. We connected. You know…you like my brother and you don’t wanna help a brother out…That’s rude…It’s like if you get a band and you got all your instruments and like, the curtain goes up, and you conducting them and shit, and you tell them to play and then there’s no sound! Man, we connected; don’t you know what that means?
Suit: It means I have a college degree and you don’t.
–1 train
Overheard by: Mikey
Mom, to little girl: Don’t you ever say ‘bitch’ again, or I will knock all of your teeth out!
–6 train
Girl #1: I think I'm gonna cut his class today.
Girl #2: Yeah, me too, it's just going to be some dumb lesson on women's rights.
–Frank Sinatra High School
Literature prof: Carlos Fuentes and Octavio Paz were two Mexican intellectuals who wrote essays concerning what it meant to be Mexican. Can anyone name some equivalent American intellectuals who were concerned with what it means to be American?
Student #1: Steven Spielberg?
Student #2: J. K. Rowling?
Student #3: Bob Dylan?
Student #4: C. S. Lewis?
Student #5: Stephen King?
[silence]
–Fordham University Classroom
Overheard by: [Embarrassed] to be an American
Hobo: Sorry miss, can you spare any change? I haven’t eaten all day.
Girl #1: …Oh I so hate it when they ask me for money. I mean, like I work all week and then I’ll just give away my money?
Girl #2: Yeah, I know, it’s crazy. I once told one of them, “Hey, do you have any idea how much NYU costs? I had to take loans!” But he didn’t even care! He just kept on coughing to pretend he couldn’t hear me or something.
–L train
