Ghetto girl #1: My boyfriend, he’s ghetto, you know.
Ghetto girl #2: Ghetto how, like ghetto ‘Can’t bring him to a work function ghetto,’ or ‘Ghetto, can’t bring home to mama ghetto’?
Ghetto girl #1: Definitely ‘Can’t bring him to a work function ghetto…’ And ‘I can’t bring him to mama ghetto.’
Ghetto girl #2: Yeah, he’s ghetto.
Ghetto girl #1: Yeah, but we are too.
Ghetto girl #2: No we’re not! Hey, where are you going, we were supposed to go into the Gap.
–34th & Broadway
Overheard by: kate
Ghetto girl #1: Yo, he better treat me better than that. I’m talking roses, bling, Red Lobster…
Ghetto girl #2: Girl that’s so true, I’m puttin’ that on my Myspace.
–Union Square
Overheard by: D. P.S.
Skanky woman: Do I know you? You were giving me a look like you know me.
Teenage boy: No.
Teenage boy to fellow train rider: Do you have a pen?
–R train platform
Overheard by: Doc
Little boy: Ewww…ewww….
Mom: Stop saying ewww..those are bras..
Little boy: I hate bras
Mom: Don’t say that, you’ll change your mind when you gets older.
–JC Penney lingerie department, Queens
Overheard by: a fellow shopper
Customer You Greek?
Waitress: Greek Orthodox.
Customer: So you’re Greek.
Waitress: No, that’s my religion, they call it Greek Orthodox.
Customer: But you’re from Greece, right?
Waitress: No, Belarus.
Customer: Russia?
Waitress: Belarus. It’s the former USSR. It’s between Russia and Poland.
Customer: I never heard of it. It must be very small.
Waitress: It’s not small.
Customer: It must be very small.
Waitress: It’s the size of France. France is quite big, actually.
Customer: I better look at a map.
Waitress: Yeah, you’d better.
–Diner, Park Slope
Rhodes Scholar wigger: Yeah, we ain’t together no more. Bitch had the nerve to dump me.
Friend: What happened? You guys looked fine last week. It doesn’t make sense.
Rhodes Scholar wigger: She wasn’t down with how I roll. Always dissin’ the way I talk and shit–you know, correcting me and shit. Said she couldn’t take it no more, that I was always actin’ ign-i-ant or some shit. Like she’s some brain scientist or some shit. Bitch was always wrong anyways.
Friend: Brain surgeon.
Rhodes Scholar wigger: What?
Friend: You said brain scientist. I think you meant brain surgeon.
Rhodes Scholar wigger: Dat’s what I said nigga, you just heard me wrong.
Friend: You know what, suddenly it does makes sense.
–Manhattan bound F train
Overheard by: SandmanEsq
Woman #1: Oooh! Look! A kid’s store! It’s so cute!
Woman #2: I hate you. I hate you for telling me that.
–5th Ave
Overheard by: Hannah
Teen girl #1: If you were a guy, I would totally rape you.
Teen girl #2: Isn’t it the other way around?
Teen girl #1: No. I wouldn’t rape a girl. Unless she was a guy.
Teen girl #2: Oh.
–Broadway
Guy #1: You know that Anton Webern’s Quartet for the End of Time was performed in a concentration camp? Crazy.
Guy #2: Yeah. He died real weird. I forget how. I think the Nazis shot him.
Total stranger: Actually he was shot by Allied soldiers. He was breaking curfew smoking a cigarette, and they mistook him for his brother-in-law, who was an alleged Nazi spy.
Guy #1: Oh, I see. Thanks.
Total stranger: Any other questions? I just ride this train all day waiting to answer questions on twentieth-century music composition. The next car has an expert on Chekhov, and the conductor studies philosophy.
Guy #1: So anyway, Slavic girls are pretty hot.
Guy #2: Yeah, for real.
–7 train
Woman #1: Yo! Hurry up in there!
Woman #2: Don’t you be tellin’ me to rush! I got my woman needs, too! I had to change my pads! Betcha didn’t wanna hear that, huh, didya? Didya?
Woman #3: No. We didn’t.
–Port Authority
Overheard by: Alanna
