Teachers/Professors

Teacher: Well, I guess it’s just Vomit and Dildo Day here in screen writing class.

–SVA Building, 21st St

Black queer to Chinese server: You tell Steve that he better come over and pick up his dildo or I’ma kick his ass!

–Christopher & Greenwich St

Overheard by: Justin Tang

Middle-aged stagehand to another: All I know is that I need to get a lot more KY jelly before next week.

–Striking stagehand picket line, Broadway

Dude to chick: You’ll have to wear a dildo…

–34th & 8th

Overheard by: Confabulation Nation

Elegant lady: That’s really one of the two great stories of your childhood, the other one being when I walked into Yhe Pleasure Chest and said, ‘Can you recommend a good vibrator for a child?’ Suddenly everyone got very quiet and still, and I gasped and said, ‘Oh, no, not like that! It’s just that… I’m a Greenwich Village mom, and she’s been using the electric toothbrush!’ They were much friendlier once they thought I was the sort of person who was going to go down the street to the market and buy some spinach, and not a dangerous pervert.

–Park Ave Bistro

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Bearded guy, excitedly: True! But what a vibrator that would be!

–Columbus Circle

Overheard by: Argopelter

Man: Yeah, I’m from the middle of nowhere in Pennsylvania.
Professor: Oh? Do you commute here?
Man: No, sir… It’s over a seven-hour drive.
Professor: Oh, yes… Right. Pennsylvania…

–W 12th St, New School

Overheard by: CARA!

Spanish teacher, reading student’s homework: What?! What is this?! Novia? You’re going to ride your girlfriend?
Student: Doesn’t that mean ‘ferris wheel’?

–Stuyvesant High

Overheard by: No, he meant girlfriend

Teen boy: Yeah, I read the audio book.

–Barnes & Noble

Overheard by: Sarah

Chick: My life has really changed since moving to New York. Like, in L.A. I use to read Us Weekly, and now I read The New Yorker.

–Lower East Side

Overheard by: Aileen

UWS mom to hippie college son: Darling, I’ve decided we must get this book because it feels really quite wonderful. [Customers gawk.] I know it sounds weird, but the way a book feels means a lot, and this one feels good. Oh, and I like the cover.

–The Strand

Overheard by: losaida lois

Literary agent: God, I’m so sick of domestic violence memoirs. I just want to go beat the crap out of them.

–W 35th St

Lit professor: Reading Ulysses for the first time, like other life experiences we have for the first time, is not quite as pleasurable as we might have hoped it would be. However, unlike other life experiences we have for the first time, reading Ulysses lasts much, much longer.

–Eugene Lang College

Overheard by: amelia

Angry woman on cell: I don’t care if you are an ordained fucking minister, you can go straight to fucking hell!

–Barnes & Noble, Union Square

Overheard by: Last-minute shopper

Crazy lady into microphone: Just because you don’t do drugs or have sex doesn’t mean you’re not going to hell!

–Subway station, 43rd & Broadway, Times Square

Teacher: Let’s go to hell!

–Stuyvesant High

Hobo: Is this the train to hell? It is! Oh my god, you’re all in purgatory!

–A train, Brooklyn

Overheard by: Geneva

Scruffy artist type, to self: I’m not in hell, I’m in New York. I’m not in hell, I’m in New York…

–Elevator, Bellevue Hospital

Overheard by: David

Professor, as a cellphone rings in class: You can e-mail me and I can send you different bird calls for your ringtones. You can assign all your friends different bird calls! That’s just like what I have, except I have frogs.
Student: She’s not kidding…

–Columbia University

Overheard by: Mo + J Beck

Professor: You should really consider going to Europe. It may be boring, but it’s cheap!
Ghetto girl in back: Fuck that shit! I’d rather go to Disney!
Professor: Europe is actually less expensive to go to than Disney.
Ghetto girl: Yeah, but only if you stay in a brothel!
Ghetto boy: Don’t you mean ‘hostel’?
Ghetto girl: Same thing, right?

–Fordham University-Rose Hill

Overheard by: Megan

Poli-sci professor: How can someone directly counteract the message of porn? What is the counter speech alternative?
Student: Seventh Heaven?

–NYU

Overheard by: Rajsingh Rules

Substitute teacher: Ummm, you in the back — yeah — what are you doing?
Student, formerly mumbling and waving arms: Oh, just casting a spell.

–Hunter

Teen to another: Yo, if I pass in June, I’ll only be in high school five years! [Pounds fists with pal.]

–F train

Chick: I used to be a straight-A student until I realized I was just learning how to get A’s.

–Diner, Chelsea

Frat boy: There are still wedgies in Quaker school.

–19th & 5th

Overheard by: Jeff McCrum

Lunching chick: I mean, I only feel sort of responsible for their illiteracy. I am their teacher…

–Dishes Restaurant, 45th St

Overheard by: Literate

Teen: No lie, my nigga — I wrote a perfect essay! I wrote a perfect essay, nigga!

–Marte Valle Prep School, Stanton & Norfolk

Teacher giving tour: Back then it was very difficult to graduate from high school, and it still is, judging from the amount of people who drop out. Although a tree stump could graduate from Saint Ann’s… Okay, no one put that in the school newspaper quotes… Please…

–Chinatown