Hoochie: I’m really not looking forward to getting up at 6:30 to go to work.
Friend: Me neither. But remember: they wanted you to be a doctor.
Hoochie: Yeah, I’m doing it because they wanted me to. I’m so angry, I’m fumigating!
–Uptown 6 train
Hoochie: I’m really not looking forward to getting up at 6:30 to go to work.
Friend: Me neither. But remember: they wanted you to be a doctor.
Hoochie: Yeah, I’m doing it because they wanted me to. I’m so angry, I’m fumigating!
–Uptown 6 train
Bubbly blonde: Isn’t it amazing how you don’t know how to do something and then you do?
–Rockefeller Center Cafeteria
Overheard by: emma
Woman #1: She had been dating him for, like, two years and then she saw him on a reality dating show last night. Now she’s going break up with him.
Woman #2: Well, maybe the show was filmed before they were dating. You know, sometimes those things take a while to get on the air.
Woman #1: They were going out for 2 years! Don’t you think he should have at least mentioned to her, “By the way, I was on a dating show”?
–Duane Reade, 52nd between Madison & Park
Overheard by: Captain Obvious
Boyfriend: So, my buddy’s celebrating Rosh Hashanah tomorrow, and he said he’ll bring me some matzah ball soup.
Girlfriend: He’s celebrating what? And giving you what?
Boyfriend: Some Jewish holiday. Some Jewish food.
Girlfriend: Ah.
–2 train
Overheard by:
Old lady covered in baby powder: Give me six donuts.
Donuts clerk: Okay, which ones?
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts.
Donuts clerk: These are all donuts… Which ones?
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts.
Donuts clerk: Okay, I'll just give you a selection of six. (starts putting random donuts in bag)
Old lady covered in baby powder: Six donuts, don't trick me.
–Flatbush, Brooklyn
Overheard by: Save the Whales, Save the Whole Thing
Student #1: Is lettuce a vegetable?
Student #2: No. It's a salad.
–24th St & Lexington
20-something woman: Do you have decaffeinated tea?
Waitress: Yes.
20-something woman: Does it have caffeine in it?
Waitress: No?
–86th & York
Overheard by: Silently Amused
Man: What? Little Richard isn’t gay, is he?
Lady: No, he isn’t gay. Isn’t Little Richard’s daughter Nicole Richie?
–Video store, 14th & Ave A
Overheard by: Such a pretty me baby!
New Yorker: …and then the tourists paused near the construction of the New York Times’ new building, and one, who was I guess their leader, pointed to it and said, “Everyone, that’s Ground Zero.”
–26th & Park
Tourist: And this is H Street. So we’ll be in SoHo next.
–Houston Street
Tourist girl: Oh, look! I think that’s Times Square!
–Broadway & Houston
Overheard by: Sumitra
Woman on cell: No, I can’t. I’m in the Times Square area right now.
–Canal & Baxter
Overheard by: Steph J.
Dude: Excuse me, is this Times Square?
–Times Square
Overheard by: Dumbfounded
Teenage girl: Does this train go to Manhattan?
–Times Square, waiting for the downtown C train
Overheard by: Courtney
Tourist: Wait, are we in Manhattan or just New York?
–Times Square
Overheard by: betsy
Australian hipster: Could you tell me how to get back to Manhattan?
–112th & Broadway
Belligerent white woman: Could you get of the way?
Black teen: I be trying!
Belligerent white woman: You should speak gramatically correctly!
Smartass: “I be trying” isn’t ungrammatical. It’s standard usage in African-American vernacular English.
Belligerent white woman: Oh, what would you know?
Smartass: I have a Ph.D. in linguistics from MIT.
–A train
