Best snippet of overheard conversation

My unkle to my aunt: "why don't you take your crack-head boyfriend and shove him up your infected ass!"

Coworker 1: Marky Mark? What are you talking about?
Coworker 2: What are you talking about? I said Flintstones.
Coworker 1: That has nothing to do with Markey Mark!
Coworker 2: I know! It's yabba dabba doo time!

Both in the past five minutes.

Fantastic.

Two little kids walking past a restaurant window in Chinatown. Chubby kid looks up at hanging smoked ducks.

Chubby Kid (to friend): Yo...DUCK, son!

Man in restaurant, in tone of admonishment, rather than shock: "You're 45 and you've never ... !"

The restaurant lull didn't last long enough for me to hear what came next, and I almost made a thread asking ILE to guess, cause I keep making guesses myself.

....been in a restaurant??!"

....listened to Jay Farrar??!"

...seen two grown men dressed as gladiators lick hollandaise sauce off each other to the tune of "It's My Party" by Leslie Gore?!?

Overheard in our local Austrian bell-ringing bar..(and surely yhe title of the next Pet Shop Boys album).."you're the reason why I left England"

Woman in front of me at the tram stop, to another woman: "so whats after summer, spring yeah? Then we have autumn and winter..."

WTF this woman was in her 20s.

As a busboy, I approached a table where a "new punk' tattooed cute girl was with her boy. She was smirking, so I think this was a set-up, but as I took the salad plates off the table, she asked him,"SO,WHAT DID THE DOCTOR TELL YOU TO DO ABOUT YOUR CRABS?"

YOU GOT PUNK'D, SON!

Woman at Old Country Buffet a couple of weeks ago: I'd rather be bit by a jellyfish than bit by a shark.

A family at Old Country Buffet, on a separate occasion:
Boy (to teenage girl): Boy, you sure like salt.
Girl: Not as much as your aunt does.
Boy (to woman): Why do you like salt so much?
Woman: I need it for my ears. It keeps the water out of em.

In the store.

Taller, okder gay guy: Yeah. My mom uses this cleaner that's really good.

Shorter, younger gay guy: Would it work.

Tall: Oh yeah. It's really good. It has a nice smell too.

Short: What is it?!! Really?

Tall: I'm not sure?

Short: Where does she get it?

Tall: I think at work.

Short: Wouldn't it be great if we could use it?

Girl siting opposite me at work:

"Hi this is CB from [magazine]. We're trying to build a unicycle and we wondered if you had any spanners?"

Student type at coffee place in SF: "Dude, I didn't need any, seeing The Dead is a trip in itself!"

At Safeway

incredibly high scratchy scouse accents.

voice1:Look at these olives.
voice2:Olives!
voice1:Dese ones are stuffed with pimento!
voice2:Woz pimento?
voice1:Don't fuckin' know.

Lad to mum in supermarket

"It's not swearing if you say ship. Ship! Ship! See, it's alright. I said Ship! SHIP!"

Two hemp-sandaled lesbians on a park bench:

"It's like everybody has a computer now."
"I know. It's crazy."

Two 14-ish-year-old girls behind me on the bus last night:
Girl A (as the bus is passing a park): Whoa, what if you cut down a tree and put it in your house?
Girl B: Then you would have a Christmas tree.
A: (pause) Stop trying to be cool.

And then...
A: Why do they call it a sweet tooth? If you had a tooth that was actually sweet, you probably wouldn't want to eat candy. It'd just be too much.
(silence from B)

And, finally, sparked by the [usually painfully simple] Who Am I trivia game that plays every few minutes on the bus televisions:
A: JFK.
B: Um, that's Jesse Jackson.
A: Oh. (pause) Haha, you know presidential faces. You're a loser.

Okay, I admit, these may not be The Best Snippets of Overheard Conversation EVER, but I still think they're funny! Or depressing! Or funny! Shut up, I'm drunk!

My mother and I were jokingly discussing how to kill off my dad one afternoon while we were walking round the bay where she lives. Looked up to the top of a small hill to see a couple looking very strangely at us. I think we were probably the best snippet of conversation they'd ever heard.

Angry Teen 1. 'Kurt Cobain wasn't that good a musician you know'
Angry Teen 2. 'Why do you say that?'
Angry Teen 1. 'Well, he committed suicide'

Actually I remember being the same age as those guys and making the same argument about Sylvia Plath.

i'm glad this is on new answers right now, cos i just heard this at the coffeshop:

citykid 1: [...]crackheads in my building, not even living there, just like on the stairs.
citykid 2: where did you live?
citykid 1: franklin & park. i used to pour water on them, to wake them up, like in the middle of winter. and they'd run around outside. cracksicles!
citykid 2: cracksicles! dude you probably killed somebody.
citykid 1: whatever. it's not like they really had a life.

spacey woman in her 40s on a payphone directly behind me at a coffeeshop, not speaking quietly at all:

(this is what i wrote down at the time, wish i could remember more of it)

"no, i just make love 'cause i feel a connection, a connection that's cute, and so i make love. you know?
...
can we just go back to being lovers without all the hocus pocus?
...
no, i just didn't know what you were talking about. that must be an issue of yours from a previous relationship.
...
i have to tell you, when i first met you, i broke one of your wine glasses, and then i hid it. open communication, boy, that's hard! whew. forgive me father, for i have sinned. will you spank me now?"

couple standing on the corner behind me, waiting to cross the street:
"are you listening to what i'm saying?" (him)
"okay! dead fetuses! i get it. i heard you the first time." (her)

"can we just go back to being lovers without all the hocus pocus?"

This is just beautiful.

I tend to hear all the best conversations on the bus between Oxford and London - for some reason ppl talking on this bus seem to lose all their inhibitions and talk v loudly on all kinds of subjects, regardless of whether they're talking amongst themselves or on their mobiles.

One time - girl on phone "Oh good news! You're not a daddy! Six days late"

then later in the same conversation:

"Ben and Laura! On MY sofa! It was disgusting! They didn't quite reach 4th base but they certainly reached 3rd!"

Then on a different occasion, some kids were describing a party at their school.

"Mrs Johnson caught me on my knees with Darren"

"What were you doing?"

"What do you mean, what I was I doing? I was ON MY KNEES"

wonder if other ppl who've used this bus a lot in the past (e.g. Liz D, Carsmile) have also overheard stuff of a similar nature?

guy at pizza place talking to friend: "you cook, man?"
friend (earnestly): "well, y'know, i make cereal sometimes..."

overheard about 6 years ago, commuting on the train back from work in NYC:

"don't go there, or i'll KILL YOU DEAD! I'LL KILL YOU DEEEEEEEEEAD!"

at a gig earlier:

"This is Ashok. he's a Brahmin"

"Oh right....they've demolished the Bullring now, haven't they? And I can never remember which is which out of New St and Moor St stations. Bournville's lovely...I think Chocolate World must be one of my favourite museums in the whole country"

"No not Brummie, Brahmin!"

hahahaha

Posted on behalf of everyone who stared at us on the bus while this discussion was had:

Him: Do you want to get off at this stop?
Me: No, I don't like walking under that bridge.
Him: Why? Because of the troll?
Me: Well, I never have any change....
Him: I went down to the Sainsbury's and got some Troll Chow, so I keep some on me, you know, just in case.
Me: I don't believe a thing you're saying.
Him: You don't?
Me: No. You're not the kind of person who has the foresight to buy Troll Chow.
Him: .....

haha!

to the whole thread!

most of it.

On a bus in Dublin a few years ago one saturday evening when all the young people were heading in to town to try to cop off, three girls, probably around 15 or 16, dolled up for the night were sitting opposite me. A cocksure young male strolls up and sits in the seat in front of them, turns around, leaning an arm nonchalantly over the back of the seat and says: "Evenin' ladies, just like to enquire: are any of yiz ridin?"

(note: the question "is she ridin'?" was common among Dublin blokes of a certain age a few years back: it translates as "has she become sexually active yet?") I don't know if it translates too well for those not familiar with Irish dirtyness...

Standing in line at a ferry cafeteria behind two teenage girls that are looking at a magazine:
"They make this deodorant look like its really fun."

"He wrote a rock opera about Ernest Borgnine. It was called 'Cooze'."

"What were you doing to get cow shit in your beard anyway?"

my director walked in on a conversation i was having where ian was saying 'well, i missed the hotpants, but you never know what's happening under a polo neck'

Message left on friend's mobile phone (friend not called Richard):

Hi Richard, this is Dr Davies, sorry to hear things aren't going so well at the moment. If you come into the surgery I have a new cream you could try, and we can talk about possible surgery.

For some reason we all assumed it was genital related.

Family (mom, dad, son) at restaurant on saturday afternoon.

Dad: "Well if its just monkeys then we're not going, because I've seen Monkeys"

Son (lifts head from shoveling chimichanga into face and lazily says): Yeah, you've seen monkeys...but you haven't seen monkeys...a lot.

I've told a few people about this one but it's worth repeating.
Standing in line in an Italian grocery I overhead this conversation between two middle-aged female shoppers:
Lady 1: "Oh look! They have Pucci cookies (I'm assuming some brand of biscotti)."
Lady 2: "Coochie cookies?!?
Lady 1: "NO! Pucci cookies!"

just overheard someone say "Our sense of smell is absolutely shite compared with that of other animals. They reckon it's because of dogs"

at this point, the two ppl disappeared out of the door to the staircase which leads to the smoking area, so I never heard the rest!

my new-ish desk is at the junction of 2 main office thoroughfares. I'd say there must be 80-90 ppl working on this floor, plus visitors from elsewhere in the building, so I hear all kinds of stuff.

Earlier:

"You put it in the green washing up bowl"

"What green washing up bowl?"

"There, in front of the bald man"

Surely Gear! wins this with "Fuck me in the ass!"

Is that 'best snippet' or 'most horrifying snippet'?

On crossing t'road in Reading, we passed a mad looking bloke on a mobile, going "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" into it. He stopped, then pressed another set of numbers, waited, and then went "Brrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr" again. and then he got into a taxi.