On Cell

Girl, loudly and enthusiastically: Everything I say is a joke!

–City Bakery, 18th St

Girl to guy: What's so funny? Did you fart?

–W 96th & Broadway

Overheard by: Megan W.

Santa, chasing scared teen: Do you think it's funny to throw things at people's heads? How about I break your face?

–42nd St

Girl: I'm really excited that, like, within our lifetime, there are gonna be funny movies about Obama.

–Manhattan Theatre Source

Overheard by: Emily B.

Laughing girl on phone: Come on, please! Please! Just take off your clothes and take pictures! (pause) Come on, mom, it would be so funny!

–Union Square

20-something skater guy to another: And then I started whackin' off, and it was hilarious.

–Broadway & E 10th St

Overheard by: Timothy

Elderly woman to Bulldog: If you were human, you would be a male model.

–44th & 3rd

Female on phone, trying to be discrete: I could take a million pictures without makeup and I could make it on the cover of Vogue. I am telling you I just want a model agent to come up to me and say "you are gorgeous, I want you to model." I know I have what it takes!

–Outside Bobst Library

Overheard by: V Liebs

Scrawny short dude: You know, I like the model-type chicks.

–Bay Ridge

Overheard by: Jon A.

Battery Park city mom, about son: He's not even four and he can earn as much from one commercial as he can from a year of modeling.

–World Trade Centre Plaza

Girl walking around with a camera: People get so awkward when you're carrying around a camera. Come on people! Give me something I can use here! You are all models!

–44th & Lexington

Overheard by: apparently a model

Drawing professor: I'm not allowed to sleep with the models.

–Pratt Institute

Five-year-old girl, holding her nose, to mother: It smells here! It smells like New Jersey! Mommy! It smells like New Jersey!

–Grand Central

Overheard by: Cicero

Teenager: Oh, wow, I didn't know New Jersey had any buildings.

–Christopher St. Pier

Girl on cell: I think I slept with a whore. Then I woke up in Jersey.

–Washington Square

Overheard by: Rachel

Crazy-sounding drunk girl: Ewww, why are there so many people from New Jersey here?

–Bowery & E 4th

Overheard by: do they emit a particular odor?

NYU guy trying to impress girls: My dad actually grew up right around here. Well…in New Jersey.

–St. Mark's & 3rd Ave

Girl sitting on raised metal platform on front deck to friend: Hey, do you want to turn around? We're looking at Jersey again.

–NYU LSP Boat Cruise

Middle aged white woman on cell: I did not call you a scumbag, but you are a scumbag.

–3rd Ave & 85th

Overheard by: Guy Walking

Street youth to another: Nigga, you got a face like a hologram!

–159th St & Ft. Washington

Girl: Yeah, she was like, "Oh my god! Did you see what this guy was wearing?" Please, she should go to a state school, because it sounds like that's where she belongs.

–NYU

Girl to boyfriend, during fight: You're like an empty Christmas present!

–16th St & 5th Ave

Overheard by: Lizzie

Guy on cell: Well, that's one way of looking at it, but could it be possible that you just suck as a person, and it was really all your fault?

–N Train

Overheard by: Shock-E

Woman on train to loud Puerto Rican woman on cell: Excuse me, can you please lower your voice?
Puerto Rican woman, into cell: This bitch just asked me to lower my voice!

–NJ Transit

Overheard by: Emily

Girl: I feel like she's really good at illegal stuff.

–34th & 9th

Overheard by: hellothere

Haggard-looking woman, screaming into cell: What? Now you're gettin' locked up and I am going to fucking prison now! Perfect! (sprints out of store)

–King Kullen, Staten Island

Preteen to another: So when you get arrested and your mom asks you where you were, you weren't with me.

–1st Ave & 16th

Overheard by: Wes Mantooth

Female teen to another: Yeah, that's what my dad got arrested for, too.

–Central Park

Teen boy on cell: I get a lot of shit from authority figures. Especially when I'm getting arrested.

–Carroll Gardens, Brooklyn

Overheard by: The Man(dy)

20-something female on cell: But never have I ever had sex with a dirty talker before, so it was something else, to say the least. I signed up to get laid, not play Penthouse Mad Libs.

–23rd St & 5th Ave

Customer, after placing order: …with hardboiled eggs.
Gay waiter: Hardboiled eggs smell like dirty assholes, an I've seen a few dirty assholes.

–Denny's

Overheard by: student-19

Preppy guy on cell: No, dude! I don't know, like…like really dirty girls.

–86th & Lexington

Overheard by: Anne

12-year-old boy to mother: The bum, you know! The dirty man that plays with me.

–Forest Parkway

Overheard by: Jason A

Guy dancing on new lawn: This isn't even good grass! It's dirty, yo!

–Pratt Institute, Brooklyn

Girl, to herself: What if my water breaks in an elevator? (laughs) Akwaaaaard!

–High School

Conductor, after announcement tone: By the way, this is not an elevator. Waving your bag in the door does absolutely nothing.

–6 Train

Overheard by: you tell 'em

Middle-aged woman, pushing "up" elevator button to another pushing "down" button: You know, I could never figure it out with elevators, do you press the button to tell the elevator to come to you, or do you press it to tell it where you want to go?

–Building, Midtown

Overheard by: Delish

Older usher at Empire State Building: Please step out of the elevator. And as Beyonce says, to the left. To the left!

–Empire State Building

Lady on cell, waiting in line: Oh really? Well, I had heard someone took a crap in a Manhattan elevator!

–Supermarket, The Bronx

Drunk girl on phone: Yeah, so I decided that I'll go on a date with you. (pause) Well, I made out with some guy tonight and… (pause) No, I don't think he's cuter than you. He's not really cute at all!
Guy she made out with: Um, I'm right here.
Drunk girl: Shhhhhhhhhh, I'm setting up a date with a cute guy!

–1st Ave & 8th St

Overheard by: amused

Lady shouting into cell: Stop screaming in my ear! Stop screaming in my ear! Stop screaming in my ear!

–Flatbush Ave, Prospect Heights

Overheard by: Ja9

Deli cashier with heavy accent to West Indian man with heavy accent: I don't speak Jamaican! I speak English!

–Crown Heights

Overheard by: Holly

Man on crowd: Stop shoving! There are fucking kids here, watch out, asshole!

–Rockefeller Center

Overheard by: Alexis

Man walking with small kid on cell: Ain't no one cursing at yo! Fuck, why you got to be like that?

–Union Square

Overheard by: Heather

Woman on cell: I just hate for people to hear my conversations in public.

–Duane Reade, 34th & 8th

Overheard by: Nicole