White guy #1: Whoa, so you're gonna fight me?
White guy #2: I think I'm gonna fight you… And maybe that tree.
–Steinway St & Broadway
Overheard by: One scary looking tree
White guy #1: Whoa, so you're gonna fight me?
White guy #2: I think I'm gonna fight you… And maybe that tree.
–Steinway St & Broadway
Overheard by: One scary looking tree
Nerdy serious white guy: See, that's what's great about going to Afghanistan. I'm no good at talking to women.
–N Train
Overheard by: annearchist
Nerd walking into archaeology class from noisy hallway: Do you hear the roman legion?
–Hunter College
Nerdy guy on cell: Yeah, she's an exhibitionist. She needs to be punished, but who's going to do it?
–JCPenny
Geeky Korean kid outside high school: I'm not really bad. I'm, like, medium-bad. You know, like, bad… But still good.
–Flushing, Queens
Overheard by: Samantha
Nerd to another: Your entire belief system is based on the rotundity of Darth Vader… That is a farce.
–Columbia University
Overheard by: Nicole
Hispanic woman: …and then I caught him going through my pocketbook and I was like, “You betta get out of there”, because he might find something that looks like a Skittle but it’s really a pill. He gonna grow up to be a thief or somethin’.
White woman: He looks like a murderer.
–R train
Overheard by: Beast Boy
A black man and black woman sitting on a bench talking. A white guy walks by and the black man screams out: Hey, don’t I know you? Hey! Don’t I know you?
White guy: Naw, you don’t know me.
Black guy: Sure I do.
White guy: Oh yeah? How do you know me?
Black guy: Didn’t you arrest me once?
–136th & St. Nicholas
Four-year-old girl to nanny: No, princesses don't get tickled. They just dance and get married.
–North Williamsburg
Overheard by: anti-feminist
White girl in hoodie: If I see any of the other girls there want to dance with you they'd better watch out, 'cause it's stab-a-slut Sunday.
–J Train
Short guy with greasy hair: Yo, this girl was like, "wanna dance?" and I was like "okay," so she started dancing mad good. She was grinding up against me with her ass.
–3rd Ave & 71st, Brooklyn
Gay guy on cell in long line during Circuit City closeout: Does it have speakers? Because I like to dance in my room, and I like to feel the music. It's really cold, so I like to dance in my room, you know?
–Circuit City, Union Square
Drunk girl to Guido she knocked heads with while dancing: I'm a drinker, not a dancer!
–Hook & Ladder Pub, Murray Hill
Overheard by: also a drinker
Professor: I'm of the personal opinion that anything counts for art. Take, for example, Nelly's "Hot in Here." We have an admonition of certain weather conditions and an entreaty for certain members of a demographic to react within a certain way, and a compliant voice replies, "I am getting so hot, I'm gonna take my clothes off." This piece of art demonstrates how much easier life would be if getting a woman naked was that easy. And also, it makes me dance, and as we know, hips don't lie.
–NYU Bobst Library
Overheard by: queenofscots
Guy: I’ll have a pretzel.
Vendor man: What kind?
Guy: Plain.
Vendor man: No salt?
Guy: No. With salt.
Vendor man: Salt is not plain.
Guy: Okay, with salt. Is that extra?
Vendor man: No, salt is salt. The other is plain. Like white people.
–Central Park
Overheard by: Collegiate Cutie
Drunk Hispanic teen: How do I get to Times Square?
Older white lady: I am not sure… Maybe two stops. [Teen whispers to her.] Good Lord, no! I am old enough to be your mother!
–F train, 57th St
Black teen hipster #1: Why are there so many white people on the 2 train this late at night?
Black teen hipster #2: Please. All these white people are getting off at 96th Street.
Train stops at 96th. The white people leave the train.
Black Teen Hipster #2: Watch ’em all scamper away!
–2 train
White guy: This Chinese woman at the restaurant kept staring at me, all angry looking, and staring at my chopsticks, like I was doing something wrong with them. Like, some etiquette thing or something. I know you’re not supposed to, like, stick the chopsticks into rice.
Asian chick: Oh, yeah, you never do that.
White guy: I know! But I looked down, no rice, no nothing, I was done with my food, they were just sitting on the plate. I think maybe she was trying to get me to think I was doing something wrong so that, you know, I’d get all self-conscious.
–6 train
Black girl: I can’t believe we just went to the hospital to find out that your cat has no sex.
White girl: What?
Black girl, louder: That your cat has no sex!
White girl: Oh, yeah! I can’t believe my male cat has no penis!
–3 train
Overheard by: office peon
Headline by: Garrett Berg
Runners-Up:
· “Cat: Why don’t you just announce it to the whole goddamn train!” – morgz
· “Garfield and the angry itch” – jeff
· “I think I’ll call him Neuter Gingrich” – SNA
· “The Penis Makes the Pussy” – Adam
