On the morning train, during rush hour, a female pediatrician gets on & then makes a phone call discussing one of her patients (including his name, which is a big HIPPA violation). The poor kid has already had two enemas; she wants to try one more & if the third one doesn’t do the trick they’re going to bring him in for more, ahhh, invasive procedure.
Sitting on a bus when they let a bunch of Amish people off. The Amish people meeting them had horses & buggies and everything. A group of black guys at the back of the bus were watching them out the bus window and talking about the Amish lifestyle.
Black guy: “Dey grow dey own food. Dey make dey own clothes. Dey build dey OWN crib!”
(He said it with respect and bit of awe, I thought.)
Wife and I were in a cheap motel with thin walls, when we hear the couple in the next room going at it. Voices muffled, but the gal said a couple of things we could understand: “I think of myself as getting married every night” and “I’m still a virgin in my heart.”
Obviously not something overheard but …
I was doing some yard cleanup yesterday and came across a piece of notepaper. It was a list of chores for the cleaner. It started with:
“1. Clean the blood in the entryway.”
Okaaay. Good thing that was at the top of the list. Now we’re wondering which of neighbors had this problem.
Back when I used to take the bus to work
and in Baltimore school kids ride the same public transportation as the rest of us.
I had a group of high school boys sitting in the two seats behind me, three were black and one was white.
I don’t know if any of the other people around me knew what they were talking about but I was having a hard time keeping a straight face and I so wanted to turn around and say ‘don’t knock it until you’ve tried it’.
WB: NO WAY, AIN’T NO WAY I’M EATING THAT!
BB: you gotta eat it, you’re white
WB: no way, ain’t not way I’m eating that
BB: yeah, you gotta eat it. You’re white and all white men have to eat it. Black men don’t have to but you’re white, you have to eat it.
WB: no I don’t
BB: yes you do, when you get married your wife is going to expect you to eat it. It’s a white thing, you have to eat it
WB: well then I’m changing myself to black cause there ain’t no way I’ll ever eat it.
My friend overheard in the music department
One teen girl to another
‘Did you know the Beatles were Paul McCartney’s backup band before he got Wings?’
I was half of the guilty party in this scenario:
In Jr High, riding the bus home. My friend and I are talking about model kits. He’d just finished a little vignette of a couple of SEAL’s paddling a dingey. At one point, I said that I had gotten some new model paint called “rubber.” At that point, he just about shouted, “Why didn’t you tell me you had rubber? I could have used it on my dingey!”
Not something you want to shout in front of a bunch of 12 year olds.
The cartoonist Derf (John Backderf) does a strip called The City, in which he occasionally does a “True Story” episode. In these, he typically recounts bits of idiotic conversation or moronic public behavior that he has witnessed IRL (or perhaps that his readers have reported to him).
This is the one that I can see as a cartoon. It’s a single panel in the New Yorker.
A comedic misunderstanding on my part in this one: I recall years ago walking by a woman whom I didn’t realize was carrying a small child (I didn’t really look at her, I was reading as I walked and saw her out of the corner of my eye) . Just as I passed by her she said in a loud voice "Will you stop biting me!" I spun around in surprise to look at her as she kept going (I don’t think she ever noticed) and until I saw the kid I had this “crazy woman accuses me of biting her in public” scenario running in my head. It would have probably looked pretty funny on camera, especially given the expression I must have had.
Fifth grade. A teacher, another male student, and I are hanging out in the teacher’s classroom after school. Beth, a female student my age, comes in. She is distraught.
Teacher “What’s wrong, Beth?”
Beth “Dougie [Lastname] broke my G string!”
She was talking about her violin. But the fact that the teacher and I had to stifle laughter and my classmate did not told me that I knew things kids my age shouldn’t.
In a supermarket aisle, a guy in a suit, talking on a cell phone, fast-walked past me. “Yeah, but you know he’s not going to hire anybody as long as Obama is president!”
Overheard loudly in the parking garage this afternoon: “Where do you think you’re going, [Dumbass made-up name]??” Heard very quietly on the way to our car: “Making a getaway from the moron who gave me that stupid name?”
My dad used to own a paint store. One day a guy came in to buy painting supplies, and brought a friend with him. The buyer was trying to decide whether to pay more for the better paint and brushes, or to save money and get the cheaper stuff. His friend thought he should buy the more expensive stuff. The buyer said, “I’ve got to think about my future.” His friend replied, “Man, you done had your future.”
Just today I was at the library and there was a teenage boy out front talking on his phone:
“But I need a ride NOW – you can get a blowjob anytime! [beat] Yeah, it’s important to YOU.”