Union Square and East Village

Ghetto kid at a carnival: Man, that wasn’t no clown. That was just someone dressed like a clown!

–P.S. 218, The Bronx

Overheard by: Children are the future

Fourteen-year-old black girl to friend: You should have thrown a brick at a clown and seen the blood. You would have loved that.

–7th Ave Street Fair, Park Slope

Overheard by: send in the clowns

Little girl, pointing at obvious pimp: Look mommy, look! A clown!

–Brooklyn

Janitor to clown post-show: Everybody loves clowns. Even Bill Gates!

–Barnum & Bailey Circus

Slightly crazed looking man to well-dressed blonde chick: For $300 you’ll get a clown and a playboy bunny!

–E4th & 2nd Ave

Overheard by: I might consider paying up

Drunk, angry Puerto Rican girl to boyfriend: You had to make me smell like fuckin’ Chinese food on new year’s eve!

–Grand St & Graham Ave, Brooklyn

Overheard by: someone who happily had a different New Year’s date, and wonders whether there is a Designer Imposters version of such a scent.

Disgusted McDonald’s patron: This shit smells worse than a hobo’s taint!

–14 & Broadway

Overheard by: Shemp

Man, entering subway car: Son, it smells like home depot in here.

–4 Train

Drunk sorostitute on cell: It smelled fine. It was just a febreeze gone awry!

–Columbia University

Overheard by: Ladle

Queer: I can’t wait to move out of this decrepit office building. A couple of days ago a mouse died in the walls -you remember what that smells like. The guys in the office said: "Maybe it’ll go away after a week," but I told them it’s just going to get worse, so now they want to bring in some awful air freshener thing. Someone is already spraying that stuff in the men’s room, and it’s got a nasty artificial orange scent, so it smells like someone shat on a fruit basket.

–28th & Park

Overheard by: Rose Fox

Girl with a huge ugly weave: I smell fried chicken! [Pauses.] … Oh, it’s prolly me. [Keeps walking.]

–Library, Washington Irving High School

Drunk guy #1: Yo, let me get a cheese slice. No… Actually, what is that?
Drunk guy #2: It’s a lasagna slice.
Drunk guy #1: Nah, I need some fuckin meat. Give me a slice with some fuckin meat on it. Oh! You got any slices with alcohol? Give me a slice with alcohol on it. Give me some alcohol!

–Moon Pie Pizza, 4th St & Avenue C

Overheard by: soyloaf

30ish girl, looking at twenty-year olds: Are they going on about how old they are? Oh, please.
45ish rocker chick: Yup, they are.
30ish girl: I think I’m older than they are!
45ish: Me too. From the look of things, they’re about the age of my first abortion.
30ish girl: [Chokes on beer.]45ish: Wonder how old that would be now?
30ish girl: Please stop.

–Double Down, Ave A

Overheard by: Happygirl

Muscular bouncer, to drunk girl: I’ll make sure you get in, because you’ve got that cute little lip ring.
Drunk girl: Want to see what else I’ve got?
Fat bouncer: I do!

–310 Bowery

Overheard by: Vasu

Cute nerd girl playing Scrabble #1: How many Ts in frottage?
Cute nerd girl playing Scrabble #2: Frottage? What’s that?
Cute nerd girl playing Scrabble #1: It’s when you rub against someone in a crowd, sexually. Like dry humping.
Cute nerd girl playing Scrabble #2: Oh yeeeeah, I knew that. Jeez, I haven’t heard that word since that Psychology of Sex class I took a few years ago.
Cute nerd girl playing Scrabble #1, enthusiastically: That’s because you don’t read enough slash!

–Starbucks, 2nd & 9th

Daughter: I was a needle!
Mom: How were you a needle?
Daughter: I was a cute needle!

–10th & 6th Ave

Crazy church lady into microphone: There are no drugs, sex, or rock n’ roll in hell. Repent and have your fill in heaven.

–42nd & 6th Subway Station

Overheard by: Tony

Train "preacher" holding his bible: Adam was the first black man! And Eve was the first white woman! And Adam sinned and got them kicked out of the Garden of Eden. Then they had a whole lot of brown babies! But they set the stage for black men and white women. That’s why you have Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton running for President today! It’s in the bible!

–2 Train

Preacher: We’ve got a lot of tourists here today and we know why you came -you want to see a black gospel church. And that’s okay, that’s okay! That’s what we are. And you know, some of our members, they do it tough. Why, they come from such rough neighbourhoods as Connecticut and upstate New York …

–Abyssinian Baptist Church, Harlem

Bible thumper: You need a ticket to get on the heaven-bound train! And the ticket is Jesus Christ.

–3 Train

Street preacher: … And what is good for the goose is good for the gander! And what is a gander, anyway?

–St Mark’s Place

Overheard by: EthanK

Dad to young daughter: If you want to hit daddy, you’ll have to take a number.

–Outside Court St. Bagels, Court & Bergen, Cobble Hill, Brooklyn

Exhausted dad to loud, hyperactive, young son: Yes, everyone knows you’re here. Terminal six food court line.

–JFK

Overheard by: Jen

Mother, to seven-year-old son as she enters a liquor store: Jesus, what’s wrong with you? This is why nobody likes you -you’re annoying!

–Outside Liquor Store, W 57th St

Overheard by: PetRunner

Father quizzically looking at waddling toddler: How can you be anti-park? I mean, you’re a kid! You can run around!

–Fort Greene Park

Overheard by: Brooklyn Dodgy

Sassy inner-city mom to dawdling daughter: Get ovah here or I’m going to have to take out my imaginary belt.

–Tompkins Square Park

Mother, to five-year-old daughter picking up cookies: Is that what you eat at daddy’s house?

–The Food Emporium, 88th St

Overheard by: charlotte

Mother speaking sternly to her infant in the baby carriage: Capiche???

–53rd & 9th

Overheard by: AH Hell’s Kitchen

Random guy, singing loudly: Leeeesbian seagull!

–South Street Sea Port

Overheard by: Ger-Man in New York

Thug: Shit! I have to get my teacher a present. Its so hard. She’s like butch… You know what I’m saying? Shes got short hair and don’t wear earrings -like that chick [points to a woman who can obviously hear the conversation and looks affronted.] Yeah lady, you like the pussy!

–F Train

Drunk girl: You wanna know why I’m a lesbian? When I was crawling out of my mothers vagina I tasted that shit. And that shit was good. I just had to keep going back for more.

–Odessa’s, Ave A

Overheard by: Dannia Alfonso

Hardcore lesbian tourist #1 to hardcore lesbian tourist #2: Hey! Beaver Street! Let’s eat down there.

–Beaver St , Hanover Square

Overheard by: WallStGuy

Black teen punk girl, arguing with boyfriend: No, I’m gonna go become a lesbian now. Big. Huge. Les. Bo.

–V Train

Overheard by: Jon A.

Buff guy: But now they’ll know I’m a lesbian.

–Christopher & Bleecker

Overheard by: Colleen