Guy: So then why are guys from the Eastern Europe and black guys so good at basketball?
Dad: Natural selection.
Guy: What?
Dad: They’ve had to fight to survive. It weeds out the physically inadequate.
Guy: Give me a break. It’s the ghetto, not some Hobbesian state of nature; they’re not cavemen living in anarchy up there.
–Madison Square Garden
Mom: How much is it?
Chick: A hundred and fifty bucks.
Mom: Let me pay.
Chick: Mom! No! Don’t give me any goddamn money!
Mom: Here, just take it, dammit!
Chick: Fine, but I’m paying for the taxi home.
Mom: I can’t believe Michael puts up with you. You are so divorced in
five years.
–The Gap, 18th & 5th
Mom: I'm not made of money, you know!
Kid: You look like you are.
Mom: Well, I'm not.
–Strand Bookstore
Overheard by: she didn't look like she was…
Guy: I don't think bees even have vaginas.
–23rd & 3rd
Suit to another: I want him scrutinized. At a gnat's ass level!
–Midtown Office
Middle school thug: I been radioactivatin' spiders in my kitchen.
–C Train
Overheard by: Emily B.
Mother to five-year-old boy: No, you can't buy grandma a plastic spider for Christmas!
–74th St & Broadway
Overheard by: Harriet Vane's Husband
Guy on cell: Hey, did I tell you I got drunk last night and ordered 1,500 ladybugs off the internet?
–Brooklyn
Overheard by: Ashley
Mom, loudly: Who does mommy love?
Screaming toddler, holding cup in stroller: Tee tee tee!
Mom: Mommy loves the baby! And who's the baby?
Child: Tee tee tee!
Mom: Are you the baby?
(child starts crying)
Mom: Oh, stop that! You're old enough to drink a latte, so quit crying.
–183rd St & Ft. Washington Ave
Overheard by: Anna
Ghetto dad: Fuck that.
Ghetto mom: Don’t say that. She’s a fucking three-year-old!
–Penn Station
Overheard by: Liz
Little girl: Mommy, how old will I be when I have sex?
–18th & Broadway
Overheard by: Mayde and Daniel
Adolescent mother to four-year-old daughter: Look at your sexy legs… you got a sexy body.
(10 minutes later)
Adolescent mother to four-year-old daughter: You gonna fall and crack ya fuckin head open.
–LIRR
Overheard by: dr. positive washington
Black man: I can never watch you eat sausage again. It was the most awkwardly erotic thing I've ever seen. It was the perfect combination of food and female.
–Pratt Coffee Shop, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Maryrose
Boy to friend: And then the teacher said: "and that's the history of ham"!
–Queens
Overheard by: alex
Young woman on cell: Well, I would go to Gray's for hot dogs with you, but I can't. I gave up tubed meat for lent.
–Washington Square Park
Overheard by: Caroline
Cute teen girl: It'd be like a floppy bag of meat… (pause) I'm not talking about dick!
–Starbucks
Woman placing drive-thru order: And two junior bacon cheeseburgers. Actually, I don't want the bacon. I don't want to get the swine flu.
–Wendy's Drivethru, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Oh the Pig-manity!
Upset Orthodox Jew mother to baby in stroller: Bacon!? Who told you about bacon!?
–West End & West 100th St
Teen girl #1: Man… I really need some hair gel.
Teen girl #2: This morning, my mom told me I was too fat to go to prom.
–Bathroom, Stuyvesant High School
Overheard by: thivnav
