Sometimes you overhear a conversation that sticks in your mind. It may be funny, or puzzling, or like the one I heard last night:
A 40-something couple and the mother of one of them were in my store. The wife was at the register, paying for some cards, when the husband said, “I want some chocolate-covered raisins.”
The wife said she’d buy him a dollar’s worth (1/4 lb.), and he became very angry and stomped out of the store. She bought the raisins and her cards, and while she was paying, the older woman said, “When we get home, we’re going to have to sit down and have a serious talk about the guns.”
The younger woman said, “I know they need cleaning, but it takes a lot of time.”
The older woman gave her a stern look and said, “I’m not talking about cleaning.”
I don’t have an actual conversation to contribute at the moment, but thought I’d mention a web site I enjoy that deals with precisely this subject: In Passing….
When I was in college, I used an older cordless phone. (Not THAT old…the Cobra cordless that’d beep and boop snippets of others’ conversation was when I was in elementary…this is about 10 years ago.) Every now and then some sort of signals would cross, and we’d accidentally overhear others’ conversations on the phone.
Most memorable was one where some young man–coulda been 15, coulda been 25, most likely inbetween–was completely losing it about a break up with a girl. We could only hear his side of the conversation, and he couldn’t hear us–even though he was as clear as if he’d picked up one of my phones and joined in our convo. He was going apeshit about what she said, and dammit, all we could hear was his reactions–NOT whatever it was she said.
At one point he was screaming, “That’s FUCKED! That’s FUCKED!” over and over. I don’t remember much else.
My friend and I got so fascinated by his conversation, we completely forgot our own and just listened in.
I was sitting behind two little old ladies on the bus several years ago when one turned to the other and said something to the effect of “If the sun is always up in the daytime, why isn’t the moon always up at night?” And then they proceeded to have a long conversation debating the issue while I sat behind them in stunned bemusement.
Well one day while I was on the bus on the way to school I happened to be sitting near a group of girls (I think they were all cheerleaders or something as I’d seen them numerous times before and overheard various conversations) talking about one of their guy friends.
Apparently one other friend (who wasn’t on this bus) had called him at home one time to talk to him and his Mom had no idea who she was talking about… till she realized that the name was similar to/a diminutive of her daughters name of the same age. They were all discussing their shock over finding that their good guy friend was really a girl.
Not that I have anything against people like that, just that I found it interesting that this person they had all known apparently for a fair bit and hung out with a lot as well as flirted with and they had no clue he was really a she. These were all high schoolers btw and as far as I know you can’t even get altering drugs without a parents permission before you hit legal age here. I mean wouldn’t you notice that your 17 year old guy buddy doesn’t show changes like a deeper voice or even the slight fuzz of a beard? AFAIK most guys have at least gone through the broken voice stage by that age!
Once I was in a shopping mall food court, and overheard a partial conversation between two young ladies.
“Oh don’t worry about that, everybody has genital warts these days”
:eek:
Well, if that’s what I have to do to fit in, then strike me down and call me outcast!
Guy on payphone as I was walking past: “I got a tatoo my myself, I bought a gun by myself, I bought drugs by myself, I can go to the movies by myself.” Can’t argue with that.
I also picked up the ringing phone and got a guy I know describing the actions in great graphic detail of a porno movie to someone else in the room. I just listened in utter amazement for two minutes until he realized I’d picked up the phone and said “Hello?”
My boyfriend and I were on a late night train, and we (and the rest of the train) were listening to a conversation between a young couple with their baby and two friends. The conversation just kept getting angrier and angrier:
Woman: You don’t even play with <Baby’s Name>! You don’t pay attention to him, you don’t help with him, nothing! It’s like I’m raising him by myself. Man: Well maybe I would, if he were my son! Woman: (almost crying) He is your son! He looks just like you! Man: That’s bullshit! I know you slept with <Guy’s name> Woman: I swear I didn’t sleep with <Guy>. Well, maybe I wouldn’t have if you hadn’t slept with <Girl’s name> on my bed!
etc.
Their friends were rocking the baby and trying to calm them down at the same time. By the end, she was sobbing openly, and he was storming down the tram. Absolutely riveting stuff.
I once picked up the phone and heard one woman telling another, “If I had my old washing machine, I’d put his peter in the wringer.” Then it was disconnected.
I was walking to the train behind two guys in their mid-twenties. Guy A was telling Guy B a story so I listened in.
Apparently, Guy A had arrived home the night before to a written phone message (written by his roommate) that said, “Your mom called, it’s an emergency.”
Guy A goes totally frantic and calls everyone he can think of, including his grandmother in some nursing home because he can’t reach his parents. No one knew what the emergency was.
The roommate comes home a few hours later (this was in the day before cell phones so I gather he couldn’t just call up the guy and ask him to clarify) and Guy A asks if his mother gave any further information, etc., and come to find out roommate’s scrawly handwriting actually said “not an emergency,” not it’s.
I actually went out of my way to hear the end of the story.
I remember that in high school, my best friend’s family owned a police scanner, and we used to hear snippets of cordless phone conversations.
I don’t know if we ever heard anything really good, at the time though, but her mother once heard two high school kids talking and they were saying, “Remember that time we broke into that house and stole the stereo? That was cool.”
One night about a year ago I was down at the beach with some friends. We passed by a group of 12 or 13-year-old girls just in time to hear one of them say “Why is the water all, like, black?”
As I passed a couple of well-dressed guys in the tunnels in Houston: “… a Huey , Duey, and Louey fishing pole.” I’ve thought about that over the years…
They own Yoda?