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. 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 are now also taking submissions for eavesdropping on video conferencing calls and all of the other newfangled ways we’re staying in touch.

Overheard of the Week

Three 50-something women at Millie’s for dinner, talking about the rising cost of everything:

“Pretty soon, I’m going to have to go back to eating ramen like I did in college. I mean, it will be Momofuku ramen, but still…”

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When having too many options isn’t helpful

A frustrated man is talking on his phone outside the Portrait Gallery, seemingly trying to pick a place for his family to eat dinner on the Saturday after Thanksgiving:

“Well, what the hell does he want then? The Cheesecake Factory literally has everything.”

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Thanksgiving? No, it’s giving 

Woman on a flight from Connecticut’s Bradley Airport to DCA after Thanksgiving:

“Every time I go from Connecticut back to D.C., I’m like: ‘Oh, actual young people.’”

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Giving off the same energy as this

Two 20-something women in the home goods section of TJ Maxx:

Woman 1: “I got scared when I started dating a blue-collar guy. [Pauses] I don’t want to date my dad!”
Woman 2: “And he was a boomer, too!”
Woman 1: “Yeah, he was like 34.”

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I’m also not tired of Thanksgiving leftovers

A family viewing the Birds of D.C. exhibit in the bottom level of the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum. A small boy, 5 or 6, to his parents, sadly:

“Awww, they killed that turkey… ”
(Long pause. Then, with enthusiasm, the boy:)
“Hey, I wanna eat that turkey!”

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Where does Home Alone fit on this family’s holiday movie rankings?

In the Orlando airport waiting to board a flight back to DCA. A 9-year-old boy with his two parents:

Boy: [says something unintelligible, but whiny]
Mom: “Alright then stay here, find a new family!”

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Just wait until this guy sees the Dupont Circle escalator

A group of 20-something guys walking through the Navy Memorial in Penn Quarter:

One guy: “So a subway is above ground?”
The other: “No, subways are below ground.”

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A failed opportunity for enlightenment, if you ask me

At the Museum of Failure pop-up exhibit in Georgetown on a Friday evening, a woman with a tween starts to walk through a doorway surrounded by “XXX” signage. Woman, stopping them both at the threshold:

“Wait… I don’t think this is for kids.”
(Long pause as they stand there, both still looking around.)
“Definitely not, let’s go.”

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And people say New York rats are bigger!

UPS driver waiting at a red light, yelling to a DCist editor, who stopped to take a stock photo of a gargantuan D.C. rat:

“Yeah, that’s a big motherfucker, huh?”

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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.