Juiciest conversation/message exchange you've accidentally overheard/seen

[Echobelly]

For a bit of fun, have you ever heard a conversation or seen an exchange of messages that you're not supposed to but you can't help tuning into?

About a year ago I was next to an older guy on the tube who was typing out a furious email, presumably to an adult child, along the lines of 'Your grandfather would be ashamed, the businesses of [Family Name] has to be passed on....' and things along those lines. I just caught a glance of it and was transfixed. Serious family melodrama! The whole tone of it was like something from a vintage TV series, I honestly didn't think anyone actually talked (typed?) like that anymore.

Sat beside a colleague a few day a week, he was head of a department based in another office location. There seemed to be no end of issues with his staff and he always suspected someone of swinging the lead.

Anyway the one most interesting was when one of dept managers under him was on a call and I could hear this “I’m not saying you aren’t entitled to a private life. But yes this does impact me as your manager. I asked you several times over the past year if you and x had a relationship. You said no each time. Yes, yes, it does impact your role. You cannot line manage your own wife.”

Many years ago I overhead 2 separate conversations taking place with people on the train, to this day I am not convinced it wasn't an elaborate wind up. Conversation 1 was in 2008, I was going to see Derek Acorah in the city with my mum. This bloke was sitting in the half occupied carriage and was quite emotional at times but then utterly bewildered the rest as he told his girlfriend(?) on the phone:
What do you mean you're kicking me out and it's over, it's my bloody house!
Don't put my furniture on the street, I've just bought it for you because you played hell with me because my ex had sat on my old sofa.
I've put up with a lot from you, the stitches have only just healed from the hair curler incident but this is beyond the pale.
Don't you dare move your bloody mother in, where's she going to sleep? (Pause) then where the bloody hell am I going to sleep?!?!

I was very young and I'm ashamed to admit that by the end of the conversation I was in tears of laughter and there was giggling around the carriage.

The second incident was also on a train and a young woman in a business suit was presumably on the phone to her partner saying that she missed their baby so much and couldn't wait to see him, it had been such a long day etc then she began speaking in a baby voice about how Mummy adores her precious boy ... Mr Fluffy Whiskerson. (I shit you not). Mummy wuvs him yes she does, he's such a good widdle baby for Mummy and daddy. Has he been a good boy for daddy today? Mummy is going to cuddle wuddle him all up when she comes home yes she is, has he been giving snuggy wuggies to daddy like a good boy?. Has baby Whiskerson done big boy poops in his tray? WOW WHAT A GOOD BOY HE ISSSSSSS. I was 19 when I heard this and my face was 😬 I was so inspired by this conversation that 15 years later I gave my own cat an equally ridiculous name.

I once overheard a conversation between the wife of somebody from a named Britpop band and another randomer she was telling her her life story at Birmingham New St.

They literally came and stood right in front of me as I ate my sushi and I heard all about how he has played with oasis, and then he damaged his wrist severed his tendon by putting up someChristmas decorations and was told that he wouldn't be able to play the guitar again so he went to university, studied got a PhD and now he lectures and is a music producer

She then said she was also married to someone famous in the states before, got divorced, and now gets paid child-support in dollars which was awful, but now with the exchange rate, is much better 😛

several years ago. Living in Canada and stopped somewhere on way home from work...Picking up something my husband needed as his work was done after closing time on a place he needed something from. Phone on my bluetooth rings. It came up as a number instead of name and I thought it was weird , but recognized my husbands number (spoiler alert...should have had my glasses on, it was close but not lol) So deep voice says hiya sexy, what are you wearing? I started describing my kitchen scrubs from the restaurant laughing. He said.. "um I don't think you are my fiance. I said nope I am guessing not as my husband would not be ok with me having a fiance. Cue a second or 3 of uncomfortable silence. Then he said...well you sound like fun, what is your name? Ummm.. my name is So Very NOT Interested. My daughter and I still laugh about it.. I swear the guy DID sound like my husband. lol

From time to time, I get WhatsApp messages from the art direction team from Bake Off asking about colour schemes, set design etc. I think someone mistakenly added me to the group chat a few years ago. I work for the council 😂

Years ago on a bus, two teen girls discussing someone they clearly disliked. "Her head's so far up her own arse it's coming out of her mouth," one said. Such bizarre nonsense I've never forgotten it.

Unfortunately, mine was a message left on my phone by the police 100s of miles from me, saying he's been released, we are so sorry, don't go home, not even to get your stuff. The panic in their voice was terrifying. I spent hours trying to contact the police and tell them it was the wrong number and the woman hadn't got the message not to go home. It haunts me still.

I used to work with a bloke who was always going on about his wife and young kids. He was always emphasising how much of a devoted family man he was.

He left and at the same time my work mobile stopped working so I was given his old work mobile. There were loads of undeleted voice messages from a woman who he was obviously having an affair with including some really abusive ones as he'd obviously ghosted her.

I remembered this from about 30 years ago when our local MP was embroiled in a sex scandal (not anyone super famous although it did make the newspapers for a while.)
I was coming home from work on a crowded commuter train and saw the MP (he was very recognisable) sitting opposite me, having a very awkward and not at all quiet phone conversation with his clearly furious wife.
This was at the height of the scandal and he was making feeble excuses - 'it's not like that, honestly, you know what the papers are like... it meant nothing, I swear... ' until she clearly hung up on him and he was left red-faced and staring dumbly at his phone.
The whole carriage was agog.
He lost his seat at the next election and left politics.

You should have got a load of mates round to watch a horse race at the same time

RubyGemStone

as he had been caught up in Welsh (?!) organised crime gangs

The Taffia?

Most recent one was a woman walking down our road screaming at someone on her phone.
' No, no your a fat slag. I'm done and you've got a smelly pussy. I've locked the door and I'm not coming back while you're there. Anyway I've been shagging.....'
She turned a corner so didn't get to hear what she'd been up to.

Love these!!!!
Mine is very dull -overheard a guy on the train talking in great detail about a business deal he was doing -loads of info about the company etc that made it completely identifiable and my friend and I were so tempted to call the competitor company…
Does now want me to take a bus ride for fun just to have a pretend conversation 😂

I was sat behind a guy on a commuter train once & through the gap in the two seats could clearly read his text conversation with I assume his gf, one of his messages said 'missed you today. If I'd have been there you'd have been tied to the bed all day'

Also many years ago, warm evening and everyone in the street had their windows open, and were thus able to hear my downstairs neighbour shouting at someone on the other end of the phone for giving him scabies.

On a bus quite a few years back - a lad was talking to his mate about how he felt really sorry for a woman with a very identifiable injury who fancied him; she was reading far too much into his kindness and he didn't know what to do, he didn't want to upset her.

The best bit was I recognised who she was. I knew her a bit and my mum was actually quite good friends with her at the time. She was in her 40s and had told everyone she had a new boyfriend who was 19 which was obviously totally one-sided fairytales. I did tell my mum about it because she'd keep it to herself.

I once found a USB stick on the floor of a cafe I worked in. It was full of copies of letters a man had sent to art galleries. In them, he called himself the most prolific artist of the 20th Century and expressed how upset he was that one of the galleries had replied to his submission on toilet paper. Sadly it didn't contain any examples of his 'art'.

Not something I overheard but a mistaken identity one… I once got a phone call on my mobile when I was at work from the sexual health clinic saying that they had an available appointment for my sex therapy… I hadn’t asked for/booked any sex therapy?! But they were adamant I had and that if I was in an uncomfortable situation/couldn’t talk at the moment I could get them to ring me back. I kept telling them it isn’t me but they were persistent and I still don’t think they believed me entirely when they finally put the phone down!

My DP was using the work iPad which was shared amongst our small team and found a video about gay sex….with a guy pissing all over the toilet seat and the other licking it off.

that was an awkward conversation…..

Many years ago nn Littlewoods (long defunct department store) a teenage couple walked past me and the male asked his girlfriend loudly "So when are we going to have an organism then?"

Reading the Brit pop post reminded me of a famous person conversation.

During the whole Carole Cadwalladr investigation into Brexit funding I was shopping in the Cotswolds. The journalist wife of an MP was walking around a little chichi tat shop bellowing into her phone, "No I'm not doing anything on Aaron Banks, I've had experience of him before and I wouldn't trust him as far as I could thow him" She and I were the only customers - always thought how confident you must be to be so obviously well known and so open in public.

Years ago I was on a train journey. I was in the window seat, another girl was opposite me, and a family with three young children were next to us and across the aisle.

They were very noisy and fidgety, the children were real chatterboxes. Suddenly one of them said 'When auntie Jane came to stay when mummy was away, she slept with you in your bed, didn't she daddy!'

Very sharp intake of breath, everyone within earshot pricked up their ears. After a long silence the mum hissed at the child 'Why don't you keep your mouth shut?', which must have puzzled the kid mightily.

I couldn't see dad, as he was next to me but me and the girl opposite exchanged the briefest of WTF looks and buried our noses in our respective books again.

The family were a lot quieter after that.

Might not count but it’s one of the best 😂😂

I got a text from a very distraught mother in Manchester who wanted me to help her son who had just been arrested. I'm not a lawyer and I have nothing to do with that world. I live in the South East.

I felt very sorry for her, as she was still asking me for advice, even after I explained that she had the wrong number

One morning stood on the bus stop two women behind me in the queue were slagging down a wedding they had been to over the weekend. I went to school with the bride . It taught me to watch what you say in public as you never know who knows who 😂