Store clerk #1: Our manager is a B-I-C-T-C-H.
Store clerk #2: Yeah, because our customers can’t spell or anything…
–H&M, 34th St
JAP getting off at Berkeley Heights: I was getting anxious about getting anxious! It was like I had anxiety about getting anxiety! What? No, the pills aren’t for that. Shut up, Mom! I’ll call you later.
–NJ Transit
Overheard by: embarrassed to live in jersey
JAP on cell: You know, it just goes to show you how sensitive we’ve become in this country to sexual misconduct and sexual… Sexual… What’s the word? Being sued.
–116th & Broadway
JAP on cell: … And then I totally just, like, bought it at Bergdorf’s… No, no! Not Bloomingdale’s — Bergdorf’s! You know, as in Bergdorf Cohen’s?
–serendipipty
Blonde JAP: Like, this is totally tighter than my colonoscopy. Ugh!
–Crowded A train
JAP on cell: Oh, that guy? I think he lost interest in me. One day I said something about how all the girls on the Upper East Side look the same and are totally boring, and he said, ‘But yeah! That’s you, too!’
–83rd & 3rd
Overheard by: A&M
Father to son: Well, I guess she’ll just have to become a stripper…
–Times Square
Overheard by: Lezbitron
Girl on phone: I guess we should go ahead with the strippers and do it.
–Whole Foods, Columbus Circle
Overheard by: MG
Middle-aged woman: I don’t know. I mean, can you put a 20 in the G-string?
–Metro-North, Harlem Line
Frat boy: Hey, man, belly dancers ain’t strippers. I learned that the hard way.
–AMC Theaters, Lincoln Center
Girl to pal: Well, where do you want your ashes spread? A strip club?
–12th & 3rd
Overheard by: Talia
Girl: Oh, has your ear been penetrated?
Boy: It’s called ‘pierced,’ Maddie, not ‘penetrated.’ Pierced.
–Central Park
Tall foreign model #1: … And we nicknamed each other’s, you know, junk…
Tall foreign model #2: Really? What does he call yours?
Tall foreign model #1: He keeps calling it ‘Gina’ — I don’t get why.
Tall foreign model #2: Huh.
–12th & 4th
Female clerk: Do we have Skinny Bitch down here?
Queer clerk: Oh, I don’t know. What does she look like?
Female clerk: It’s a book.
Queer clerk: Oh, we have books here, too.
–Barnes & Noble
Guy to friend: Yo! I’m mad hungry! I want some anus! [Passengers stare.] … Awww, shit! I meant that shit from McDonald’s — angus! Angus!
–4 train
Enthusiastic queer: This train smells like McDonald’s! Someone’s being a chubby chicken!
–Queens-bound N train
Overheard by: Onion
Hobo: Just so you know, they don’t got liquor stores in heaven. They don’t got no McDonald’s, neither.
–1 train
Overheard by: Galen
Girl on cell: He’s obsessed with America’s Next Top Model… And he watches What Not to Wear… What? No… Mom, he said that McDonald’s fries are his weakness, but they go straight to his thighs! How much gayer do you need him to be?!
–Pratt Institute
Mom to crying kid in stroller: Well, if you don’t want McDonald’s, I don’t know what I can get you.
–207th & Broadway
Hobo: Ladies and gentlemen, I’m not gonna lie to you — I’m broke, homeless, and I really wanna see Big Momma’s House 2. Please spare some change.
–F train
Overheard by: benny
20-ish chick: Why is Jason Bateman in a movie called Mr. Magorium’s Wonder Emporium? This ruins all of my fantasies.
–Harlem
Overheard by: Ladle
Diner: Yo, ‘hyena’ — I know how that’s spelled. H-Y-H-E-E-N-A. High-heena! I know that shit. I saw The Lion King.
–IHOP, Staten Island
Overheard by: explosivo
Ghetto white girl: She never even saw Breakfast at Tiffany’s until I lent it to her… Tryin’ to act like that’s her shit…
–B train
Young Socrates: Yo, son, Saw II is the ill philosophic reference.
–Brooklyn College
Overheard by: fival went east
Flight attendant: Attention, passengers, please turn your attention to channel 30. Caddyshack is on!
–LaGuardia
Overheard by: Erica: I quickly went to channel thirty
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
