Tourists

Wednesday One-Liners Are One Baaaad Mother– Shut Yo' Mouth!

Cute JAP talking about all the stuff she gets: I don't need a man, I have my mom.

–Rare View Bar

Overheard by: white guy

Blonde girl to male friend: Listen, John. Fifteen minutes, your mom. Fifteen minutes, your mom.

–R Train

Annoying 40-something new mom: A good mom always has a diaper in her pocket!

–Barnes & Noble, 18th & 5th

Overheard by: I Am McLovey

Coworker: I got a bootleg mother.

–Midtown

Window-shopping tourist to wife: Look, honey! It's the dress your mother wore when they buried her!

–Union Square

Overheard by: CJ

Guy: I go over to the house for Mother's Day and she yells at me for not calling her for Mother's Day like my brother did. So I go outside and call her from my cell and say "happy Mother's Day!" and she yells at me for being an idiot.

–37th & 7th

Missouri or Kansas?

Cop to cabbie: Hurry up, you Arabian fuck! Dumbass towel-heads…
Tourist mom: Do you have to use that language? There are children present.
Cop: Lady, shut up. This is New York — either get with it or get out.
Tourist mom: This never would have happened back in Kansas City.

–Rockefeller Center

There is No Transfer There There

Man #1: Oh no…
Man #2: Can we go back to LA now?
Woman: Please do.

–Bedford Avenue station

Wednesday, with a One-Liner Chaser

Female day-drinking tourist: Oh shit, I left my vodka in the church!

–Outside Trinity Church

Man on cell: If it's possible to ferment it, we have fermented it.

–7th St b/w 2nd & 3rd Ave

Middle-aged man to younger man: You know how cats and dogs–they eat and then they go? In one end and out the other. I'm like that. My bladder has room for the equivalent of one good cocktail.

–10th Ave and W 50th St

Overheard by: Ah….middle age

Commuter at 8 am: Beer. Beer.

–Grand Central

Overheard by: baconista

Old drunk walking into a liquor store, to clerk: Have you got my prescription?

–Broadway & 106th St

Overheard by: rickbruner

Bad Copies of Coach, Prada, Supernanny

Guy selling belts: Getcha belts here! Five dollahs! Belts! Only FIVE DOLLAHS!
Touristy man passes by with 10-year-old son.
Guy selling belts: Getcha belts to hitcha kids with! Talking to them don’t work!

–W 65th St

Wednesday One-Liners Prefer Omaha

Tourist: I don’t like this train line. On the L line they have benches so that you can kneel down and pray… And they don’t have crevices digging into your ass and shit.

–1 train

Tourist girl: Let’s go to the Upper Wet Side.

–Palace Theatre, Broadway

Tourist: You haven’t been raped and stabbed ’til you’ve been raped and stabbed in New York.

–Central Park

Dude with huge backpack, clutching a map: Sometimes you just don’t want to see a huge ball of twine, y’know? It’s, like, 200 miles away. [Guy next to him nods head vigorously.]

–Manhattan-bound L train

Middle-aged tourist on cell: No, we gotta go to Penn Central. Trust me, I know this place — we gotta get to Penn Central.

–Penn Station

Touché, Ann Coulter, Touché

Tourist guy #1: New York is cool man, a lot of places to visit and shit.
Tourist guy #2: Yeah, I know… I can’t wait to find me one of them horny-ass "Sex in the City" whores to suck me up while I’m here.
Tourist guy #1: That’s a myth, you fag. It ain’t real.
Tourist guy #2: Look at those moms over there. I bet they’re craving some young cock.

–Outside Radio City Music Hall

Overheard by: FatCop

And Momma Bear Said, “This Advice Is Too Friendly”

Conductor: Ladies and gentlemen, due to an earlier incident, all Sixth Avenue line trains are running over the Eighth Avenue line. Please be patient.
Confused tourist lady: What does that even mean? I don’t understand.
Suit: It means that if you want to take any of the trains on the orange line you transfer at the next station like normal, but instead of going downstairs you just wait on that platform for the train you want.
Middle-aged woman across aisle: They’re not orange line trains. It’s the B, the D, the F and the V. Real New Yorkers don’t call it the orange line.
Suit: Hey, lady, fuck you. There, is that New York enough for ya?

–E train approaching W 4th St

Remember the Good Old Days Of Junkies and Whores?

Tourist #1: Where are we going? Do you know where we're going?
Tourist #2: Oh, yeah. I recognize this. We're going north. We're definitely going north.
Tourist #1: Oh, yeah, you're right.
Nearby New Yorker: I hate this place. They're all crazy.

–Crossing Broadway & 42nd St

Well, I Guess I Have Time for a Short One

Comedy promoter: Come on! Great show — you know you want to come!
Tourist girl: No, thanks, I’m good. C
Comedy promoter: Come on! We have midget strippers!

–Times Square

© 2026 OverheardinNewYork.com
Hat Tip 🎩 to The Marketing Scientist