Teen daughter: So, is this what you saw?
Mother: What?
Teen daughter: Is this what you saw when you took estrogen?
–Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era, Whitney Museum
Overheard by: flowerchild
Teen daughter: So, is this what you saw?
Mother: What?
Teen daughter: Is this what you saw when you took estrogen?
–Summer of Love: Art of the Psychedelic Era, Whitney Museum
Overheard by: flowerchild
JAP mom, looking at diorama of Neanderthals: Amanda was taking pictures of them before…
JAP daughter: It must be her goal weight.
–Museum of Natural History
Guy to friend: Yo! I’m mad hungry! I want some anus! [Passengers stare.] … Awww, shit! I meant that shit from McDonald’s — angus! Angus!
–4 train
Enthusiastic queer: This train smells like McDonald’s! Someone’s being a chubby chicken!
–Queens-bound N train
Overheard by: Onion
Hobo: Just so you know, they don’t got liquor stores in heaven. They don’t got no McDonald’s, neither.
–1 train
Overheard by: Galen
Girl on cell: He’s obsessed with America’s Next Top Model… And he watches What Not to Wear… What? No… Mom, he said that McDonald’s fries are his weakness, but they go straight to his thighs! How much gayer do you need him to be?!
–Pratt Institute
Mom to crying kid in stroller: Well, if you don’t want McDonald’s, I don’t know what I can get you.
–207th & Broadway
Teen boy: Yeah, I read the audio book.
–Barnes & Noble
Overheard by: Sarah
Chick: My life has really changed since moving to New York. Like, in L.A. I use to read Us Weekly, and now I read The New Yorker.
–Lower East Side
Overheard by: Aileen
UWS mom to hippie college son: Darling, I’ve decided we must get this book because it feels really quite wonderful. [Customers gawk.] I know it sounds weird, but the way a book feels means a lot, and this one feels good. Oh, and I like the cover.
–The Strand
Overheard by: losaida lois
Literary agent: God, I’m so sick of domestic violence memoirs. I just want to go beat the crap out of them.
–W 35th St
Lit professor: Reading Ulysses for the first time, like other life experiences we have for the first time, is not quite as pleasurable as we might have hoped it would be. However, unlike other life experiences we have for the first time, reading Ulysses lasts much, much longer.
–Eugene Lang College
Overheard by: amelia
Five-year-old boy pointing at large statue of naked man: Look how small his whizzer is, Mommy!
Mother: It’s not nice to point, Jake.
Five-year-old boy: But he’s not a real person… Look how small it is!
–Time Warner Center Mall
Mother: Put your shirt back on, or I won’t take you bowling.
Son: Am I funny, Mom?
Mother: No, honey, you’re strange… like that homeless man there.
–14th & Broadway
Overheard by: Ed
Little girl eying food at counter: Mommy, how much is a dollar?
Absent-minded mother: Thirty-six cents.
–LaGuardia
30-something mom: Here we are. Here we are. Get it? Here we arrre.
Five-year-old daughter: That’s a good one, Mommy.
–R train station, Union St
Overheard by: Tacologic
Thug dad to toddler after bumping stroller down stairs: I call that there ride ‘The Earthquake.’ You like that? … Well, see, you’re too young to appreciate the magnitude of what just happened.
–A train
Overheard by: Stephie
Ghetto mom to seven-year-old kid: You don’t know how to hustle! You ain’t no hustler, she ain’t no hustler… No hustlin’.
–137th & Broadway
Overheard by: should she be saying that to a 7 year old?
Mom to eight-year-old daughter: This is not about apostrophes! This is about verbal agreement!
–F train at Broadway-Lafayette
Mom to son climbing on ferry railing: You wanna jump? I’ll throw you. Then I ain’t gotta buy you no Power Ranger.
–Staten Island Ferry
Overheard by: autumn
Mother to three-year-old trailing behind: Stay close, baby, you know how ferry men like to take little boys.
–Whitehall Staten Island Ferry Terminal
Overheard by: Ryn
Mom: Boy, don’t you listen? I swear, I will tear your ass up on this bus in front of everyone if you don’t behave. [Kid ignores her, and mom pulls out cell.] Fine, I’ll call Santa on yo’ misbehavin’ ass.
–BX 21 bus
Woman holding child’s hand: You’re my daughter, right? Okay, good.
–Port Authority
Overheard by: Nervous
Little girl: You’re like a staircase!
Mother: You’re like a staircase!
Little girl: No, you’re like a staircase!
Mother: How am I like a staircase?
Little girl: Turn around, and be like a staircase!
–11th & 4th
Overheard by: tj
