Best Ever Overheard Snippets from Strangers (Eavesdroppings)

[strawberrisc]

I used to have a book by Nigel Rees called “Eavesdroppings”. It was full of snippets of snatched bits of conversations that people heard on buses or in the street as people passed etc. and really appealed to my daft sense of humour.

I’ve just Googled an example (not from his book).

Overheard a couple on the street: "It just fucking hurts when you bite my dick!"

What’s the best thing you’ve overheard or wish you knew the backstory to?

I was in Dahab in Egypt, which is a bit of a backpacker-y hippy type place (although I was on a bog standard package holiday). Walked past a young couple and one was saying very earnestly “I want to save the world....but first I have to save myself”

I can offer one of my own which the passerby apparently looked horrified at:

"...and the whole thing was made of human skin!"

I once heard a lady say ‘some days are diamonds, others are just stones’ in a shop, years ago, and it really stuck with me. It was said so matter of factly- yeah, some days are good. Others are shit. Deal with it.

I loved that book!

@AviatorShades me too! I may need to but a copy on Amazon. The one that made me laugh the most is now really fuzzy in my memory but it was something like an elderly couple arguing on a bus and she said “shut up and eat your fish”.

My favourite one, which I over heard on a bus was
" So, she called the baby Tia Maria".

'She got into trousers in 1977 and she's never been out of them since'
DH overheard my mum saying this on the phone to my aunt. God knows who she was talking about- he didn't ask.

For your reading pleasure, the original "Overheard" website, Overheard in New York:

https://overheardinnewyork.com/

A young and well turned out 'suit' sitting in front of me on a train some time ago. Conversation on a phone, speaking for the benefit of all around. It started off going on about his various masonic experiences and probably doing some kind of fast-tracking through whatever initial levels of masonic stuff there is because he was such an exceptional human being.

Then got onto his dedication to martial arts and said something like: "It was so incredible. It got me to be security for the Dalai Lama...I was livin' the dream"

Overheard walking past a Weatherspoons, a very drunk woman saying to a male friend, "I just have an affinity for the sea, okay? I have a fuckin' affinity for the sea."

"And then I slid down the stairs on my belly and ended up getting stuck in the catflap"

‘The bloke who does my tattoos, right? He actually breeds scorpions.’

"If you had to have the head of a snake and the body of a lion, or the head of a lion and the body of a snake, which would you choose?" (One young man to another walking down a street in Cambridge - sadly, I couldn't hear the answer.)

"I'm cold even when it's hot. Me 'ouse is on t'wrong side of t'sun - I nivver see it." (An assistant in Huddersfield Sainsbury's)

And then I slid down the stairs on my belly and ended up getting stuck in the catflap

Absolutely priceless. That's made my day.

Not sure if it is from the book in question but there were two elderly academics wandering through an Oxbridge quad, in the middle of a very involved argument, one was in the middle of an obviously long list of points

'....'and......ninthly...'

"and it is legal to keep them as a pet as long as you don't remove their arsehole!"

I can only assume they were referring to the fact it's legal to keep a skunk, but illegal to remove their stinky glands!

Oh these are brilliant!

I have an affinity for the sea. Am crying! 🤣

I overheard a very old man sayin to his friend ... ‘ if I had known this I would have put provisos in our wedding oaths.

My husband said he was then gutted as he didn’t know you could put proviso in your vows as he would have added some

In London "....when I played for Lady Archer.......

Some just move in higher circles.

In the Spar shop in Polzeath. “But that’s not buffalo mozzarella. I have to have buffalo mozzarella.”

Context was all really. Butvitvmadecme smile.

Also..... “If you wanted to have a clump of my pubes you only had to say”.

Are these all like, human beings or something? Said by my nine year old to an increasingly panicked crowd of people the looks we got were hilarious

Oh my word, I just remembered my other favourite!
Quiet lull in the middle of an interval in a theatre a good few years ago. 2 people looking slightly idly from balcony seats at some of the lit signs over doors.
Overheard: "Why do they put 'Way Out'? What's wrong with 'Exit'? Way out is like.... waaay ouuut."

Two students on the bus in front of me:
English student: "... and like, is there countryside in America?"
American student ".....well, yes. Yes there is."

I whipped my notebook out my handbag to record it, my memory's not grand.
I couldn't see the American student's face, but I was imagining she looked like

Wandered past an older couple having a chit chat in the local park:

'It's like when you bought that donkey in Leeds...'