Little boy, excitedly: Can we go to Chelsea Piers again?!
Mom: No. That would require having money.
–11th & Ave B
Little boy, excitedly: Can we go to Chelsea Piers again?!
Mom: No. That would require having money.
–11th & Ave B
Daughter: Oh, Mom! Look, there goes all those comic books kids are reading.
Mother: That’s a cult. Hurry up the escalator.
–Comic book section, Borders, 33rd & 7th
Little girl: Mommy, I have a headache.
Mom: Well, maybe we should just get you some sake.
Little girl: What?
Mom: I mean tea. Hot tea.
–Grey’s Art Museum
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
