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, and you can check out the archives here.
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Tourist season is underway, and they’re doing the normal stuff: standing on the left, stopping at the top of escalators, filling the sidewalks, and so on. But sometimes they bring interesting names for things.
Overheard of the Week
In front of the National Theatre on Pennsylvania Avenue:
A group of three bros on scooters stop among some suits at the crosswalk.
Bro 1 to group of suits: “Do you know where the big white thing is?”
Suit 1: “You mean the Washington Monument.”
Bro 2: “Yeah yeah, that.”
(Suits point in direction of monument. Bros speed off on scooters.)
Suit 2: “If that’s kids these days, we’re sunk.”
——
Aww
Father and daughter are waiting at the crossing signal on K Street:
He’s a standard downtown type, she’s 4 or 5 wearing a Mickey Mouse puffer coat.
Girl (reading): “BB&T. What’s that?”
Man: “It’s a bank.”
Girl: “Big Business and Tea!”
——
Sounds about right
At a gay bar, watching RuPaul’s Drag Race on Thursday evening:
A group of friends is talking during a commercial break. One guy is wearing a
suit.
Suited guy: “The best way to get a job on the Hill is to have a job on the Hill.”
Friend: “That’s the most D.C. thing I’ve ever heard.”
——
Strong opinions
In the elevator exiting a fancy office building downtown on L and 15th NW:
Two young people in their late 20s get off. The man looks hipstery.
Man: “I want something kinky. Not like chai… chai is so basic.“
Woman: “Chai is not basic. But at least you didn’t say, ‘chai tea.’”
Man: “It’s so 2012. Now it’s like, matcha, everywhere.”
——
Boom, roasted
Saturday around 10:30 a.m. at 17th Street and Pennsylvania Avenue NW:
A tourist dad to his toddler son: “The White House is over there. That’s where the president — quote-unquote ‘president’ — lives.”
——
Gonna start using this
Near 14th Street, as the throngs of Saturday day drinkers leave the rooftops in search of dinner:
Two men in their 20s walking. They run into a friend: “Well, flip me over and call me Abraham Lincoln!”
——
What is, eating only ramen in college?
Two guys in their 20’s walking along H Street in Chinatown:
Guy: “That’s how you get scurvy, Alex.”
——
Yes, exactly
On the Metro around 5 pm:
A family of tourists are talking.
Dad to kids: “At the next station, we need to switch to the Orange line going to Vienna.”
Mom: “Vienna! We’re going to Italy?”
Dad: “Yep! Italy! Guess you didn’t know that!”
——
What a tale!
Night time on the Orange line headed towards Vienna, as the train pulls into Foggy Bottom:
Two early 20-something acquaintances are chatting.
Person 1: “So Foggy Bottom is the Metro station for the George Washington University. I know because I was on campus last summer.”
Person 2: “Oh cool, what classes were you taking?”
Person 1: “I mean it was by accident— I was looking for the Jefferson Memorial.”
——
Thank you to this officer
At the intersection of 14th and H NW:
Traffic cop to a driver in a car who stopped in the crosswalk when the light turned red: “Back up for me. Back up.”
A few seconds later: “You ain’t got no camera? I don’t care.”
A few more seconds later: “Reverse. It’s the R.”
——
Modern day college
Crossing the street in Foggy Bottom:
Two women, presumably GW students, are crossing the street when a driver almost hits one.
Woman 1: “Be careful!”
Woman 2: “Let him hit me—I have $80,000 in student loan that he can pay.”
——
This is true IMHO
At lunch in Takoma Park:
Middle-aged woman to friends: “Well, people who aren’t good with acronyms just shouldn’t work in D.C.”
——
When you’re really getting old!
At the Takoma Aquatic Center men’s locker room:
Three teenage boys are talking.
Boy 1: “That’s some B.S.”
Boy 2: “We just say ‘bullshit’.”
Boy 3: “Yeah, if you’re going to say it, say the real thing. I mean, we’re all seventh-graders here, right?”
As always, we rely on you to overhear the good stuff and send it our way. Make sure to tell us who was speaking to whom and in what context.
