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.

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.

We always love a good meta-Overheard.

Overheard of the Week

A 30-something woman in a downtown office building on a Friday at 5 p.m.:

“80 percent of the things I say are Overheard-worthy.”

——

Constructive criticism 

A D.C. street:

A pedestrian is talking very loudly to someone on cellphone.

“No, I haven’t been criticized for the meeting yet, but I was criticized for not turning the fan on in the bathroom, so everyone heard me shit.”

——

Parental object permanence 

Near Woodley Park:

A mom and dad are talking about people they know, while their 6-year-old listens.

Kid: Who are all these people? They’re not my friends from camp.
Mom: They’re not your friends, they’re Mommy’s friends.
Kid: Oh. Dang!
[He thinks for a minute.]
Kid: Wait, Mommy, you have friends?

——

Life goals

At the Friendship Heights Metro station:

A mom is talking to her young daughter.

Daughter: “Hey Mommy! Guess what? No one at school saw my nipples today!”
Mom chokes on coffee and coughs for a minute: “I suppose that’s a good daily goal. Well done.”

——

D.C. in the year 2019

At the Moxy: 

Two 20-something NGO co-workers are talking at a happy hour.

“I follow a lot of beer gardens on Instagram so I know when the debates are because they have on-tap specials.”

——

This is extremely relatable  

Outside of the East City bookstore on Capitol Hill

Two late 20-ish women are talking

Woman 1: “Let’s go in and look around.”
Woman 2, incredulously: “You have like a thousand books at home that you haven’t read!”
Woman 1: “I don’t want to read, I just want to shop for books!”

——

Comforting?

In a Wawa bathroom

A young girl, probably preschool age, is with her mom in a stall. Her mom is trying to talk up school, saying she’ll make a ton of new friends and get to learn about the world, and not to be too scared. In another stall, a toilet flushes. The girl shouts and starts to cry.

Mom, exasperated: “Honey, you can’t be scared. There are a lot of toilet flushes in the world and they’re not scary. And honestly, there are more scary things to cry about.”

——

Point taken

Three small children (maybe five or six years old) at Poodle Beach playing in the sand nearby, building a sandcastle.

Little Girl #1: “Let’s play Princes and Princesses in the castle! (talking to the little boy) You can be the handsome prince (then turning to the other girl) and we can both be pretty princesses!”
Slightly Older Little Girl #2: “We’re not supposed to play games that have such strict gender constructs. Let’s just all be very talented elves instead.”
Little Boy, nods approvingly: “Yes, elves. Elves are better.”

——

Us either

On an Orange line train to Vienna during a Tuesday evening commute, two friends are chatting

Girl 1 : “This girl I know measures time in pumpkin spice lattes. Her Facebook says, ‘In the 8 years since I started drinking pumpkin spice lattes I’ve switched jobs, gotten engaged and adopted a new fur baby.'”
Girl 2 : “I don’t get it”

——

One way to look at it

Two girls in their early twenties walking near Georgetown University 

Girl 1: “I think I have a drinking problem…I can’t go to sleep without at least one drink first.”
Girl 2: “That’s not a problem, that’s just a routine.”

——

The mysteries of Mother Nature

Three 20 somethings riding on Lime scooters on the Ellipse are arguing about the origin of the White House Christmas tree

One woman finally yells, “No! That’s not how trees work. They don’t grow that fast. It has to come here from somewhere else.”