Girl #1: …was supposed to be there. You know, from The Golden Girls.
Girl #2: Oh yeah, what happened?
Girl #1: Didn’t show, I hear she’s a real bitch.
Girl #2: Isn’t she like really old now?
Girl #1: She was really old like 25 years ago.
–11th Street & 2nd Avenue
Overheard by: Eric
Suit: Attention tourists. It is now just after 5PM, and unlike you, some of us had to work today and would like to fucking get home. Please keep moving and do not just fucking stop in the middle of the sidewalk. This has been a public service announcement.
–43rd & 7th
Conductor: Next time, you lose your hands!
–N train
Overheard by: Gregorio
The train stops in the tunnel, and the conductor announces: Ladies and gentlemen! We are momentarily held between the stations. We will be moving shortly. Meanwhile, sit back, relax, and enjoy the scenery.
–A train
Driver: Welcome aboard the M86 crosstown bus. I apologize for the delay today; we will be moving momentarily. If you are carrying a grudge from school, or work, or home, please do not take it out on me. I promise you, we will be moving momentarily.
–M86 bus
Overheard by: Diane
Conductor: Get all your possessions, including your body, inside the doors, if you want the train to move. It’s that simple.
–S train
Conductor: That was a very dangerous thing that you just did with the cane.
–F train
Store guy: I don’t get it. If I lost my kid for 5 minutes I’d be crazy.
Customer man: You’d be hysterical. You’d be a madman.
Store guy: Meanwhile, the kid must have been in the store for 45 minutes before I noticed him!
–Quails, SI mall
Queer #1: I think after a year torture is really a “lifestyle”.
Queer #2: Yeah, right.
–Houston & Sullivan
Overheard by: Scottie
Employee: Can I leave at 5?
Boss: Why?
Employee: I cannot work here for more than 5 hours day, for medical reasons.
Boss: What reason?
Employee: Well, this work is so dull and unsatisfying that if I work more than 5 hours a day I could jump out the window?
Boss: Wait, did you say you go to NYU?
–22nd Street office
Bystander guy #1: Congratulations!
Bystander guy #2: One sixteenth of you are gonna make it!
–NYU Graduation Ceremony, Washington Square Park
The subway doors open. A hobo enters, holding a bottle of windex in one hand and a tube of toothpaste in the other.
Hobo: Which is the better time to read Dostyevsky? Winter?
He sprays the windex.
Hobo: Or Spring?
He squeezes toothpaste out of the tube.
Japanese girl: Spring!
Hobo: You are correct.
–F train
Overheard by: Pete Johnson
Chick #1: She spent the whole summer blowing guys in the top bunk.
Chick #2: That’s gross.
Chick #1: Yeah, I woke up one morning and she was like, “I hope I didn’t keep you up with my fellatio”, and I was like, “No, I got a phone call and I don’t need to hear about your sex life.”
–2nd Avenue station
Overheard by: Wilsun Filups
Homeboy: I don’t discriminate. If anyone messes with my family, or my kids, I’m taking their life.
–Bx21 bus
Overheard by: Fiona
Chick on cell: I don’t know…I think I’m in Queens. The train’s above ground…I lost my keys and I have to be at work in 45 minutes. I’ll guess I’ll go in the same clothes…I don’t know what he does. I think something at night, though. I took his money.
–7 train
Girl on cell: That’s very nice to diagnose yourself like that but, really, fuck you…I still think you’re, like, a sociopath or something.
–6th Ave. between 50th & 51st
Woman: How did you get that big scar on your face?
Man: The war in Iraq.
Woman: That’s still going on?
–42nd & Lexington
Overheard by: Jonathan
Queer on cell: Yah, well, Terri Schiavo died this week, and so did the Pope. So it’s been a pretty good week.
–Chumley’s, Bedford Street
Overheard by: Initials
Girl on cell: Fuckety fuck fuck, I forgot to put on a tampon this morning. Shit, shit, shit! I’m screwed, Lizette, I’m screwed.
–Bensonhurst
Girl on cell: Don’t walk in the blood! Don’t walk in the blood! Oh ah aah!…Thanks lady, thanks for walking in the blood.
–Essex & Rivington
Overheard by: Nicole A.
