Photo by Mr. T in DC.
Welcome back to Overheard in D.C., DCist’s weekly column of funny, strange and poignant things that our readers and staff overhear and send in. We’ve been doing it since 2006, so check out the archives here.
D.C. is great in the spring: The weather is usually good, plants get green, flowers bloom, birds chirp everywhere. It’s a nice time to visit or spend time with your family and talk about the complicated things in life.
Overheard of the Week
A Saturday afternoon next to the Lincoln Memorial Reflecting Pool:
Kid, after seeing ducks floating in the Pool: “Dad, can ducks fly?”
Dad, after a long pause: “You know son, I don’t think so.”
After the jump, fun times on the Metro, tourists, and young people today.
Overheard in D.C. relies on you to send in the good stuff to our special Overheard in D.C. email address. Make sure you tell us who was talking, to whom, where, when and in what context, otherwise we’ll have to email you back.
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WOOO! OPERAAA!!!!
6:10 p.m. on a Green Line train Saturday on the way to Navy Yard for Opera in the Outfield:
Train operator: “Attention ladies and gentleman, the lead car of this six-car train has been isolated due to a sick passenger. Again, the lead car of this six-car train has been isolated due to a sick, inebriated passenger. No passengers are allowed to ride in the lead car.”
Passenger: “Translation: A drunk threw up in the first car. Must be a day that ends in ‘y.'”
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Happy Mothers’ Day!
On the 32 Metro bus:
Woman by turns sobbing and screaming into her phone: “I CAN’T not graduate, Mom! I CAN’T! This CANNOT happen! … Every time someone asks and I have to tell them I’ll still be in D.C. this summer, a little bit of me DIES, Mom!”
Simultaneously, a woman about three rows behind the other woman: “… wait, based on what you’re telling me, I have to ask: is my mom alive right now?”
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They are totally lacking typewriter and protractor skills, too!
In Georgetown the other day:
Elderly man speaking to his wife: “Kids these days don’t understand that tattoos won’t get them jobs.”
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Yes
Around 3 p.m. on a Sunday, on 7th Street NW:
One 35-year-old guy in cargo shorts to another: “Is the Mall the side with the Capitol or the Monument?”
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It has a lot of side effects, though
At the White House Farmers Market:
Vendor: “I had to go buy Clarendon because my allergies were so bad. I like that one better than Allegra.”
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Tell me more, o’ mentor
At Rose Park in Georgetown:
Dude on cell phone: “It’s not like you could live five billion years and see the sun explode.”
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Also, Metro has public bathrooms
On a Yellow Line rush-plus train heading north around 6 p.m. on Tuesday:
Metro Operator: “This stop, U Street/Cardozo, home of Ben’s Chili Bowl.”
Train car erupts in laughter.
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Maybe that’s why they’re so hard to get rid of
In the office near Union Station:
Two coworkers are chatting about rat sightings in D.C.
Coworker 1: “I wonder if rats are like mice and don’t have bones.”
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Well, this is depressing
Walking past the National Museum of American History in the evening:
A group of four late-30s/early-40s businessmen are talking: “You’ve got to drink to live in the States. You don’t know who’s who anymore.”
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Just don’t take the train
At a softball game at Guy Mason park:
Group of recent softball alumnae are discreetly drinking pitchers of margaritas in the bleachers.
They cheer loudly when the Hoya 3rd baseman catches a routine popup in the second game of a doubleheader.
Alumna: “Now I get the trick to cheerleading.”
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