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.
We can’t have Overheard in D.C. without your submissions! Email your Overheards to overheard(at)dcist[dot]com and don’t forget to include who was talking, to whom, and in what context.
Congratulations, you’ve made it to the end of 2018, and you definitely earned a few extra laughs. Without further ado, here’s our favorite eavesdropping of the year (or, you know, since June, when DCist returned to the interwebs).
The worst kind
Dupont Circle:
One young woman to another: “That girl plagiarized my LinkedIn profile.”
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Turn left at the McNugget
On the H3 bus:
Young woman to friend: “I love living in Tenleytown, but hate that I have to use McDonald’s as my main reference point.”
——
The All-Star Game festivities got CRAZY!
Two men walking out of a restaurant near the Senate side of the Capitol:
Man 1: “I heard you hurt yourself over the weekend eating a hot dog.”
Man 2 shakes his head.
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A tourist classic
On the Mall:
Person on the phone: “I told you! I’m standing by the tree next to the museum!”
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A trip down memory lane?
At Politics and Prose at the Wharf:
Two twenty-something women are talking.
One woman, tapping on her phone, says to the other: “Ugh, I hate when I forget my password and I’m forced to relive my entire childhood through a series of security questions.”
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The invisible hand at work
After the bars have closed on U Street, a girl in line is ordering a pizza slice
Girl: “Can I get ranch with that?”
Woman behind the counter: “That will be 50 cents extra.”
Girl, shaking her head: “Capitalism. I get it.”
(She hands over the 50 cents.)
——
Perfection
In a busy Saturday morning line at A Baked Joint in Mt. Vernon Triangle:
A group of 20-something women are talking about going out plans for the night.
Woman: “So I looked up Tropicalia, because someone said it was under the Metro and that didn’t make sense to me. But it turns out it’s just under a Subway restaurant.”
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This is true for many of us
At Meridian Hill/Malcolm X Park:
The acro yoga practitioners are doing their usual acro thing.
Person in the group: “You know, there’s just only so much turmeric I can have.”
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Growing pains
At Starbucks in Tenleytown:
A teenage boy to a companion: “Welcome to the world of sexual … relations. It’s terrible.”
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AARP that!
During an obviously-a-first-date date at Room 11:
Late-20s guy: “Yeah, it’s the third job in a row I’ve had where the organization changed its name from an acronym to just a string of letters that supposedly no longer mean anything. It’s the hip new thing for non-profits.”
Woman: “Uh huh.”
——
Art inspires different people in different ways
Friday night at Denizens in Silver Spring:
A father is holding his son, about 5, up to the urinal.
Child, clearly coming to the end of his “business”: (singing) “Shake it off, shake it off.”
Dad, flatly: “That’s not what that song is about.”
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Too real
Two contractors are discussing work delays.
Worker 1: “What’s taking so long with this job??”
Worker 2: “Damned if I know. It’s easier to get appointed a Supreme Court justice than it is to get a building permit in this town.”
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Sound about right
In the hallway of Dirksen Senate Office Building, with the shutdown looming
Two twenty-something male Hill staffers greet each other.
Dude 1: “Hey man, how’s it going?”
Dude 2: “Oh you know, constant disappointment.”
Dude 1: “Darkness and sadness the world throughout? Yeah, same here.”
———
Burn
In the women’s bathroom at Board Room in Dupont. Three early-twenties women walk in. One goes into the stall, and the other two continue chatting with each other near the sinks.
Woman 1 (to woman in stall): “Can you hurry up??”
Woman 2 (in stall): “I’m juuling! I’m peeing and I’m juuling!”
Woman 1: “Can you be less of a millennial and more of an adult?”
———
Life lessons in 2018
At a polling place
Father to toddler: “Can you say ‘vote’? No? How about ‘Democracy is in peril?’”
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Missed it by just one side
Nail Spa in Barracks Row:
A college-age tourist talking nonstop to the manicurist
Girl: “My mom lives right next to the tall pointy monument. You know, the Pentagon.”
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There’s a lot going on here
At a rooftop bar in Northwest:
Four guys arrive, they are all in their early twenties. One of them is already slumped-over drunk and another is merely incoherent. The other two are engaged in conversation.
Bro 1: “So for, like, most of last year I was just getting huge.”
Bro 2: “You mean like in a good way?”
Bro 1: “No, brah, not in a good way. I was eating chicken parm, like, three times a day. Breakfast, lunch, and dinner.”
Bro 2: “That’s too much chicken parm, brah.”
Bro 1: “Yeah brah, but then it got, like, even worse, because I went on vacay, and you know when you’re on vacay you just let yourself go, right? But ever since I got back from vacay, I’ve been crushing it… is that a fucking meteor?”
(A substantial meteor streaks across the northern sky)
Bystander: “Yep, that was a meteor.”
Bro 1: “You’re not shitting us, are you, brah?”
Bystander: “…no.”
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As always, we rely on you to overheard the good stuff and send it our way. Make sure to tell us who was speaking to whom and in what context.
