Young woman #1: I don’t want to apply too many times though, because I don’t want to look desperate.
Young woman #2: Oh, how many times have you applied?
Young woman #1: None.
–Diner, 48th & Lexington
Overheard by: Visitor to NYC
Young woman #1: I don’t want to apply too many times though, because I don’t want to look desperate.
Young woman #2: Oh, how many times have you applied?
Young woman #1: None.
–Diner, 48th & Lexington
Overheard by: Visitor to NYC
Lesbian daughter: Wow, I have such burnt-out memory cells. Not to be confused with my sickle cell.
Sister, laughing: It’s all mom’s fault! All mom’s fault.
Lesbian to mom, screaming and laughing: Why didn’t you eat my placenta?! You should’ve eaten my placenta! You needed to eat my placenta!
Mom, calm as can be: I’m not African. And besides, you have enough people eating your placenta.
–Parking Lot, NYU College
Overheard by: Lesbian’s Wifey
[Class is conjugating Japanese verbs in the “to make someone or let someone” form.]Student #1: To make someone eat.
Student #2: To make someone sit.
Student #3: To make someone forget. [Beat, then in English.] Wait, how can you make someone forget something?
Japanese teacher, totally serious: Bourne Identity.
–Japanese Class, Columbia University
Overheard by: Vicksburg
Girl walking with friend: Well how about a fist to your vagina!?
Friend: [Looking around.] Uhh you really don’t want to be saying that right now.
–Jay Street
Dispatcher’s voice on walkie talkie: Four black males seen in the subway station, dressed as women. Repeat, four black males dressed as women.
Cop, into walkie talkie: Ten-four to central… Is that breaking a law?
–77th St Subway Station
Overheard by: AJ
Man giving out rap CDs: Yo! Check out my new CD, it’s only five dollars.
White man: Thanks, but we do not like rap.
Man giving out rap CDs: What are you, racist?
Man’s wife: Honey, I think we should go now.
–Times Square
Tourist: Excuse me, can you tell me how to get to MoMA from here?
Suit: Fuck you, what do I look…
Tourist, indignantly interrupting: No, fuck you, you motherfucking piece of shit. You don’t want to answer, you say “I don’t know”. All you New Yorkers are a bunch of cock-sucking assholes.
[Suit, stunned, gives directions.]Bystander to tourist: Where did you learn to do that?
Tourist: The Midwest.
–Outside the Guggenheim
Overheard by: Ehem.
Girlfriend: Did I ever tell you about the time I was on this train really late at night and this old guy sitting across from me was looking at these comics that had, like, really graphic drawings of vaginas?
Boyfriend: With like… vines crawling out of them?
Girlfriend: [Pause.] Ummm… No.
–Downtown 6 Train
Man: What’d you think?
Woman: Just another story about how guys can’t keep their golden horns in their pants.
Man: We can’t help it if our golden horns start to glow whenever we get near a vagina cave.
Woman: Don’t ever let me hear you say that again.
–Leaving IMAX Theatre After Beowulf, Lincoln Sqaure
Overheard by: The Professor
