(a place to put conversational snippets that will not be denied)

[walking by crazy street lady midway thru her convo with herself]

“..it’s a good idea don’t you think?”

me: “what is?”

“space”

crazy street lady otm

guy in the video store:

“Dude, remember, we rented the first two Conans and King of Kong and you. You pussed out. You said you were tired and fell asleep after one!”

“can i please buy a cigarette from you ... i’ll give you two dollars ... i just got back from the hospital ... here are my x-rays ... i’m not a bum ... please take this quarter ... i haven’t seen benson & hedges for a long time ... i’m from new jersey ... i took the filter off ... i have money ... i’m not a bum ... my name is walter ... they call me slim ... hey you know what ... i like your colors ... etc ... etc ... etc ...”

me, to lxy: what are you doing tomorrow night?

passerby: not much. want to go for a drink?

voicemail i got at work:

hello uh

tara lipinksi

i have a lover’s cross for her

and a victim of the love

that she shares now

ballet boy

goodbye

and another, this one misdirected:

hey

i’m looking for the nutcracker

uh yeah

i’m about five two

i’m looking for someone who has blue eyes

yea um

i heard about this nutcracker

holla!

up the street just now

man: “what do you put in your hair?”

woman: “what do i put in my hair?”

two chubby small town video clerks, as i was leaving:

one: “what are we?”

the other: “we’re a video store. we rent videos.”

girl outside of a bar tonight: “i applied to manage the kitchen at **** restaurant. on the application they asked ‘have you ever been convicted of fraud?’ i did that criminal background check on myself, $9.95 or whatever. yep, it’s still on there.”

and another, this one misdirected:

this makes it seem like the tara lipinski voicemail was correctly directed to me

down-and-outer: do you have a cigarette you can spare?

me (grumpily): sorry.

down-and-outer: that’s okay, dear. have a nice day.

it used to be that the crazy people in the cafe were lucky to scrape together enough change for a small house coffee. now the nutsos—scratching fast, 100 motions a minute, one of them hunchbacked and stinky—have macbooks. what a land of plenty we live in.

“this hallway smells like incense? it’s a lot better. ours smells like balls.”

“you’re not going to get explosive diarrhea on my watch”

this is not overheard but an old lady that comes to one of my classes has said:

“i’m a quilter and a terrorist”

and

“the moon would be a good penal colony”

she did it again!

“jewish prisoners get kosher food in prison”

professor says something blah blah blah—

“but they won’t LET THE RASTAS SMOKE POT!”

old lady fighting the good fight

“the best seat available on the main floor that’s available.”

that reminds me of one of my all-time favorites from work:

“you need to email Housing and Food Services at hfsinfo.washington.edu, that’s H as in Housing, F as in Food, S as in Sam”

someone from upstairs at work, on a cellphone on the street: “the other witness, they’re trying to turn against us.”

wish i knew that backstory!

“My answering machine is just a mechanical thing”