Wednesday One-Liners Are Down, but Not Out

Hobo with two jars in front of him: Food or drugs! Choose whether you’d like to sponsor my evening shot or dinner!

–Central Park

Homeless man: Hey, bindi-a, lookin’ good today! (Indian girl ignores his comment, begins to walk away). Fine! When you get mugged, I’m not helping you!

–Washington Square Park

Enterprising lady hobo: You could use your credit card to get cash, and give me the cash.

–Outside Dunkin’ Donuts, Brooklyn

Overheard by: Rich Mintz

Panhandling hobo: Spare some change for a large bottle of water and a nice Chef salad? Spare some change for bottled water and salad?

–Broadway & 10th St

Hobo: Hey lemme borrow those red Converse! I’ve got a hot date with Monica Lewinsky tonight!

–14th & 6th

Hobo to another: "You’re gonna turn me into a waffle?" That’s what she told me, you said! A waffle? Oh no, I don’t think so!

–23rd b/w 6th & 7th

Overheard by: sara

Crazy hobo: Watch out for traffic and knuckleheads! Beware! (points at random pedestrian) Him! He’s a knucklehead! Don’t trust him!

–5th Ave & 49th St

Posted on July 23, 2008
About Celebrities, Advice, All Wednesday One-Liners, Bag ladies, Brooklyn, Central Park, Chelsea & the Meatpacking District, Clothing, Crazies, Crazy, Dating, Drugs, Fears, Food, Hobos, Men, Midtown & Hell's Kitchen, Money & Class, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Offers and requests, Panhandling, Questions, Threats, Union Square and East Village, Vegetarian & Vegan, Washington Square Park, Women

Um, Plate Tectonics?

Large black woman with large black turban: I am a full blooded Navajo Indian, I have the right to be here on this sidewalk!
Cop she’s arguing with: Well, wait a minute. You just said you were going home to Ethiopia. How the hell can you be a Navajo?

–6th Ave b/w 3rd & 4th

Overheard by: Ben Goldman

Posted on June 26, 2008
Black People, Compare/Contrast, Cops, Default, Foreigners, Global Geography, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Questions, The Village, Travel, Weirdness, Women

Wednesday One-Liners –Unclean! Unclean!

Eight-year-old boy to another: You usta play dirty house with her!

–E 9th St & Ave A

Overheard by: Fred Daubert

Visibly annoyed ghetto-fab young lady, while loudly cracking her gum: They too many nationalities on this bus and most of them don’t be clean.

–57th St Bus

Overheard by: tinyfoo

Chick, looking at rat sipping from puddle: Eeeww, how can he drink that? It’s so dirty!

–6 Platform, Grand Central

Guy on escalator, to friend: … Dirty sandwich…

–E Train

Overheard by: M_C

Male student: Either you’re a dirty, stinking hippie, or you’re pretentious.

–Bard High School Early College Library

Thuggish hobo: Please! Somebody talk dirty to me!

–Washington Square Park

Posted on May 28, 2008
All Wednesday One-Liners, Animals & Nature, Boys, Cleanliness, Food, Friends, Ghetto Chicks, Girls, Grand Central, Guys, Health and Hygiene, Hobos, Insults, Kids, Lower East Side, Midtown & Hell's Kitchen, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Offers and requests, On the Subway, Public Transportation, Sexuality, Students, Stupidity, Thugs, Union Square and East Village, Washington Square Park

Wednesday One-Liners Play Hungry, Hungry Hypocrites

Woman with thick Jersey accent, very seriously: I really need to get an accent. Accents are very important to people here.

–1 Train

Overheard by: McFreaky

Drunk man screaming into cell: Stop fucking yelling!

–30th & 8th

Guy on phone: It just really bugs me that she’s always talking to other people about our relationship…

–Bedford & 4th, Williamsburg

Overheard by: andebobandy

Aussie bartender with heavy accent: He was complaining that the burger wasn’t flat because it’s hand-rolled and not frozen. [pause] Fucking foreigners.

–O’Keefe’s, Court Street, Brooklyn

Overheard by: NJH

Guy in wheelchair (peeing in a Snapple bottle) to friend: People are nasty.

–W 38th St & 8th Ave

Overheard by: Bebe

Posted on May 28, 2008
All Wednesday One-Liners, Brooklyn, Chelsea & the Meatpacking District, Drunks, Foreigners, Gripes, Guys, Insults, Junk Food & Fast Food, Men, Midtown & Hell's Kitchen, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Offers and requests, On Cell, On the Subway, Relationships, Restaurants & Cafes, Williamsburg, Wishes & desires, Women

Benetton’s Next Ad Campaign Is Gonna Be Edgy

White chick, examining bacteria plate: Aww, my bacteria are so cute. I have like pink ones!
Blondie: Lemme see. Ewwww… Is that what you colonized from your hand?
White chick: Yeah…?
Blondie: Ewww, you’re dirty, don’t touch me.
White chick: Fuck you, I go on the subway all the time.
Asian chick: Me too. Hey, I have some white colonies on my finger culture… Maybe I have some white in me after all.
White chick: And I have some yellow colonies! Together, we are a perfect rainbow of transcultural germs.
Asian chick: Awesome.

–Barnard Biology Lab

Overheard by: Vicksburg

Posted on May 25, 2008
Asians, Colors, Columbia (& Barnard), Default, Girls, Health and Hygiene, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Public Transportation, Race, Science, White People

We’re Still Jews Though, Right?

Little boy: …I met another girl at school who is Mexican!
Mother: Colombian! We’re Colombian!

–65th & Riverside

Posted on May 24, 2008
Boys, Compare/Contrast, Default, Elementary & Middle School, History & Geography, Kids, Moms, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Upper West Side & Lincoln Center

Youth Is Wasted On The Wednesday One-Liner

Teen dude: You just can’t be tall and survive on a mountain!

–Halloween Adventure, 11th St & 4th Ave

Overheard by: da sarkastik ninja.

Teenage boy: Girls are so lucky… They can feel themselves up whenever they want.

–LIRR

High school girl: I said to her: "What they call you?" … And she said, "TND". And I said, "’TND’?, What’s ‘TND’"? And she said "Top Notch Diva". [Howls with laughter.] She said "Top notch". Nobody say "Top notch"… That was like, last summer… Top notch… [laughs and snickers] and then she say: "What they call you?" and I said "BB"… "Betta bills". [Howls with laughter.]

–#1 Train

Teen boy, with a sigh: Sometimes the world just isn’t as shiny as you want it to be.

–42nd St

Teenager to Mexican friend: Don’t make me call immigration on you.

–Q train, to 57th st

Overheard by: LoRna

Teen: I like the beginning part of the Dido song "Thank you", you know, the depressing part, because I can relate to it. Well, aside from the parts about missing the bus because I have a car and paying bills because my parents do that for me.

–Union Square

Overheard by: UCB

Posted on May 14, 2008
All Wednesday One-Liners, Boys, Cars and Driving, Compare/Contrast, Death, Friends, Gender issues, Girls, Health and Hygiene, Height, Masturbation, Midtown & Hell's Kitchen, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Music, Nicknames & name calling, On the Subway, Public Transportation, Questions, Store, Teens, Threats, Trains Not Subway, Union Square and East Village, Wishes & desires, Words

So Much Classier to Just Hide in the Bushes

Suit #1: Dude, he’s SO strange. You know I walked passed his desk yesterday and he was researching stuff on his computer about religion. Some multicultural shit or something.
Suit #2: Woah.
Suit #1: Yeah, I know. [Pauses.] You know I bet he’s like one of those guys that dates a girl and calls her all the time and stalks her.
Suit #2: Totally.

–Starbucks, 30th and Park

Overheard by: Faetra

Posted on April 3, 2008
Coworkers, Default, Friends, Gossip, Harassment, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Murray Hill and Gramercy, Office politics, Psychology, Religion, Starbucks, Suits

Forget it, Jake. It’s Chinatown.

Student #1: When you walk through Chinatown, they push and shove right through you!
Student #2: Yeah, but you can’t get mad at them, because they do it to each other. It’s, like, cultural. [Students look over at a woman as she gets elbowed in the face by an old Asian man when he rubs his eye.]Student #1: Cultural… Cultural…

–Brooklyn-bound F train

Posted on January 17, 2008
Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, On the Subway, Students

Except for the Cow Part, She Should Feel Right at Home

Yankee: You’re from North Carolina? What is there to do in North Carolina, anyway?
Tourist: Oh, we tip over cows and lynch niggers.

–Havemeyer & Grand, Brooklyn

Overheard by: A Provincial New Yorker

Posted on December 23, 2007
Brooklyn, Leisure, Multiculturalism, Overheard Style, Southerners

Multiculturalism, Overheard Style

We’re Still Jews Though, Right?