The Overheard Thread, or TIH (today i heard)

Post your most ridiculous, revelatory, or revulsive conversations overhead in public places.

A couple from today:

"I think most Gen-Xers would be much less bitter if they'd just embraced fanny packs."

"2 eggs over easy, but no runny yolks; that's a health hazard."

And one from last week:

(woman ordering raw steaks from the butcher counter)

"Do you have any that aren't as red colored? like, more cooked?"

 

"This place is dirty, you wanna go look at some cute soaps?"
"Yeah, totally"

Overhead from one young woman to another while walking around a vintage sale with my wife.

 

From today:

"I decided I needed to find a hobby, so I've started buying scented candles."

 

Back in the ancient livejournal days, I used to post there frequently on a similar "overheard in..." community. Some of mine from memory:

************

kid (approx 5): did you know that if you're eating chocolate and then pick your nose that everything smells like chocolate after?

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(college students in the study hall)

student 1: and he was arrested for his anti-semantic...
student 2: semitic
student 1: what?
student 2: se-mi-tic
student 1: what'd I say?
student 2: semantic
student 1: what's the difference?
student 2: *pause*... semantics

************

More college kids discussing body hair and the term "treasure trail" and derivatives for hairy people like "treasure road" or "treasure highway", then one particularly fuzzy fellow stands up and begins lifting his shirt... behold, the autobahn...

 

Overheard many years ago, from an older lady, at an *International* Festival in Halifax, Canada.

"Oh, I don't like this music, I do wish they'd play something from Newfoundland"

 

Back when I sold electronics...
Lady staring at microwaves, "How do you change the channel on these?"

Even further back, working at a chain record store.
Lady: "He's Black and he plays saxophone. Do you know who he is?"

 

This is probably my favourite overheard, even after fifty years.

A London (UK) bus, c. 1972. A group of black schoolgirls debate, "Would you date a white guy?"

One of them says, "Yes, of course. What difference does it make? One day we'll all mix together and the whole world will be shades of brown."

I find that food for thought even now. On the one hand, I thought that she was very wise and grown up. And that the world was/is not grown up enough to handle multiple races. On the other hand, all-mixed-brown and nobody cares about colour might seem a certain ideal, but sad to think of all the cultures and subcultures that would be lost along the way.

Anyway, this is absolutely not to open that whole topic. Just to point out that something said by teenager on a bus over fifty years ago is still with me.

 

Overheard in CT:

“I was born in Albania”
“Is that near Westchester?”

 

Some time ago at a mall in Orange County, CA I heard a guy say this to his wife:

“After I drop off the kids, is it okay if I squeeze in time at the hyperbaric chamber?"

 

Fashion Island

Fashion Island or South Coast Plaza?

 

definitely Fashion Island

 

GenZ coworker sitting in a cube with a huge window down the corridor from me:

"I'd go crazy if I wasn't sitting next to a window, the sunlight is so refreshing! My doctor said I've definitely got S.A.D.!"

4 hours later, talking to a different coworker:

"I know! The sun is so bright it drowns out my monitor and I can't get any work done without the blinds closed!!"

 

At a nice sushi restaurant:

Q: “Do you have any allergies?”
A: “No allergies but… please I don’t like raw texture”

 

From today:

Two security guards in the lobby.

Guard 1: "That reminds me of a movie I watched, it was futuristic..."

Guard 2: "Total Recall??"

Guard 1: "It was in Australia or something."

Guard 2: "Total Recall? With Colin Farrell?"

Guard 1: "It was in Australia, and it was like a futuristic prison with big cars and trucks."

Guard 2: "Yeah, that's Total Recall. That's definitely Total Recall."

 

"Yeah, that's definitely The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert."

 

More like No Recall

 

I don't know Total Recall. Come to think of it, I don't know Australia either.

So... Could be anything.

 

Joke's on me cause I had no idea there was ANOTHER Total Recall from 2012... It even had a character named Quaid!

"I wish I had three hands!!!" LOL

 

Listen, even Benny couldn't be an audiophile. "Hey, man, I got five kids to feed!"

 

At the zoo, looking at a sloth. It's all curled up in a tree sleeping, because it's a sloth.

I notice a woman looking intently for about 30 seconds, then she says, "How boring! I wish it was much more active."