Test-taker: What happens if we don’t know our social security number?
Proctor, in thick Russian accent: Then we dismiss your test and eat you alive!
–Edward R. Murrow High, Brooklyn
Overheard by: melanie
Test-taker: What happens if we don’t know our social security number?
Proctor, in thick Russian accent: Then we dismiss your test and eat you alive!
–Edward R. Murrow High, Brooklyn
Overheard by: melanie
Well dressed party-goer: No, like, I went to Princeton -we lied all the time.
–Williamsburg
Overheard by: Cuny Graduate
Dude on cell: Okay… Great. Yeah. But I gotta go. My mom’s calling. [Hangs up, shoves phone in pocket.]
–Wagner College, Staten Island
Overheard by: Squiggs
Woman on cell: I just don’t understand why he got so freaked out about it. I said "I love you" -big fucking deal. That doesn’t mean anything. I could have been lying. I was lying, for Christ’s sake.
–L Train
Crazy hobo: Hillary Clinton is a liar, she lies. We’ve been married for 28 years and she won’t admit to it. Liar. Afraid of integration, that’s Hillary.
–E Train
Overheard by: Liz Beaux
Suit on cell to his wife: Yeah… Yeah… Oh, honey, I have to go, this is it, the train’s here. Bye! [Clicks over to the other line.] Hey buddy! How’s it going!
–125th St. Subway platform
Overheard by: EthanK
Twentysomething player on cell, picking fresh hairs off him : I feel you, I feel you, I can’t meet up with you now, I have to go to Forest Hills to get my haircut.
–N Train
Overheard by: john
Guy on cell: Most people lie to get out of jury duty and here I am being honest about NAMBLA.
–73rd & 2nd
Overheard by: melissa
Young English teacher, showing class movie of Greek tragedy Agamemnon: Does anyone else think that Agamemnon kinda looks like the Burger King King?
Student: Well, there goes my grade.
–Stuyvesant High
Chick #1: So, you transferred to CUNY-Hunter?
Chick #2: Yeah. My last school was making me stupid and drunk, and I can’t be a lawyer like that… Look at you, little big knuckles!
–Q train
HS boy #1: How do you spell “toll”?
HS girl: T-O-L-L.
HS boy #2: Like “pay a toll”?
HS boy #1: Like “take a toll on a nigga.”
–F train
Overheard by: Miss B
Guy: So, I saw this video online of a chick who tied her beef curtains in a knot…
–Astor Pl
Chick: Maybe I should scrap my dissertation and just write erotica?
–Columbia University
Overheard by: Wild Dog Boy
Chick: My favorite porn line, and possibly my favorite movie line ever, is, ‘Suck it, my queen. Suck it.’
–Grand Sichuan, St. Mark’s Pl
Overheard by: Rose Fox
Intern to another: They do too make gay pornography!
–42nd & Madison
Overheard by: Nicolas Agrait
Cube neighbor on phone with friend: So, the first thing she needs to do is throw it out — get rid of all the porn. I mean, she has closets and closets full of it!
–Midtown
20-something woman on cell: I may be too analytical for erotica.
–Outside Century 21
Overheard by: McFreaky
Boricua chick #1: So does your new boyfriend go to school?
Boricua chick #2: Yeah, he goes to some fancy-ass school in Manhattan… BMCC or somethin' like that.
–Queens Blvd
Girl looking at garbage and dirt spilled on the sidewalk: Gross. You think it’s supposed to be art?
–Broadway & Houston
Literature professor: So anything that anybody ever painted was a Guido?
–NYU Silver Center
Plausibly mad septuagenarian clerk: When I was 16 Stravinsky bought my first painting. It was written up in the paper. A couple of days later, I was kidnapped.
–Barnes & Noble, Lincoln Center
Overheard by: Seth
Father to four-year-old son: Looking at art makes your legs tired.
–Metropolitan Museum Lobby
Philistine: I don’t like art in which you have to understand the motivation behind it.
–Outside the Guggenheim
Overheard by: Devoted Puppy
Professor-type man to group of teens looking at Greek sculptures: And if the sculpture’s back is up against the wall and you want to see it from behind, just get up against a wall and look at its ass as much as you can… yeah! It’s not dirty or wrong… Just look at its ass!
–Metropolitan Museum of Art
Ditz #1: Are you applying to any SUNYs?
Ditz #2: What? What’s that?
Ditz #1: A ‘State University of New York.’
Ditz #2: Oh, Michigan?
Ditz #1: No, no, no. What are your safety schools?
Ditz #2: Michigan?
–Death Cab for Cutie show, Madison Square Garden Theater
Overheard by: Jess Cohen
Boricua: Yo, son, I told you! Birdseed don’t know shit about shit!
–Fordham University
Announcer: The 10:30… Shit, the 11:30 six train to Ronkonkoma is now boarding on track eighteen. Shit…
–LIRR terminal, Penn Station
Eight-year-old girl: Mom, look! Mom, they got a nicer elevator than we do! Shit.
–7th & 2nd
Overheard by: BJ
Girl: Awww, all they have is shit!
–NYU dining hall
Loud woman on phone: So, guess what my 18-month-old daughter learned to say? ‘Oh, shit.’ And guess who she learned it from? Mommy.
–Bergen Beach-bound B3 bus
Overheard by: Robert
