Let's Bubble Up to the Surface and Smell the Numbers

now when things went south for you...
and the value has obviously increased...
that's my question where's the damage...

assume that everything went horribly wrong...
what's your damage assume your damage...

you can't just roll on and on...
let's make the motions...
let's start pushing this...

a healthy lawyer-to-lawyer relationship...
give me whatever you got...
to me it sounds a little skeptical...

so what I'm thinking is...
maybe what I can do is...
something like that could even...
if I have to hire somebody like that I just might...

you got burned on this one but life moves on my friend...
I think we need to take care of all the...
and then you and I will sit down and...

bubble up to the surface, smell the numbers...
get all our ducks in a row...
stop the hemorrhaging...

this is my stop I'm getting off...
call my girl...
we'll get your gravy back...



Fragments of a cellphone conversation overheard on the Long Island Rail Road. The speaker was a fast-talking suit who got off at the Jamaica stop in Queens, presumably to make his way up to the courthouse near there. Submitted by Derek Owens.

A nice place to visit

Mommy, the universe
is such a big scary place,
says the little girl with red hair.
Oh, yes, it is such a big scary place,
says the red-headed mother
of the little girl with red hair.
But don't worry, dear,
we're not going there.



Overhead while exiting the Hayden Planetarium, New York City. Submitted by J.R. Solonche.

My Favourite Fairy

She has very delicate sparkly bright blue eyes
and a red red red red red red dress
That’s why I love her
so much




A small girl talks to her mother. Overheard on the street, 3 September 2014. Submitted by Grace Andreacchi.

Wood Green chopping city

I've shown you how to chip,
I've shown you how to chop,
I've shown you how to dice and slice.

These sad people who spend
all their time chopping stuff up
in the kitchen - all you need's just
three cuts across like this.
You won't find an onion chopper any quicker!

They're not cheap.
If you're looking for cheap stuff getahtofere.
I've been using this same machine
on my demonstrations for fifteen years.

And you get a free spirally cutter, look -
you can use the peel for earrings.
There's a booklet with both words and pictures
so if you can't read the words, just look at the pictures.

They're £24.95 on TV,
so you're saving almost a fiver.
If you can't afford it today,
stick to the knife,
don't bother me,
Not bein' rude,
but I don't have to live in your house.



The patter of a cockney guy demonstrating an elaborate kitchen vegetable cutting machine in Wood Green Shopping City, London, 2004. Submitted by Richard Tyrone Jones.

Commuter Chat

I have a vision of the universe
– because nobody can find the end of it –
as stuffed in a glass jar
on someone's desk,
maybe God's desk
but a desk, anyway.

I think the white noise on TV
is the leftover noise
from the Big Bang.




Overheard at Macclesfield station, March 2013. Submitted by Ailsa Holland.

Prescription for a creative burst

I want to sit out in privety
with my dressing-gown on
and nobody to see
but it must have a balcony.

Then I can finish my writing.
It's a hundred-and-forty a night, with a hot tub.
That's no good. I can't write
with a fountainpen in a hot tub.

I wonder if there's background music.
I can't have the sort of music
that keeps you jumpin' all the while.
There needs to be quiet.

The windows have got to open.
I must hear water all the time.
If I get a room that's luxurious
I'll get writing in half the time.

I want to see Rooms One and Eight.
I want to see if they'll do.
I don't need you to come with me,
but I'll need you to move in with me.

It's all sketched out already,
just waiting to be filled in.
I'm tense till I get this settled.
Can't get my head round it till then.



Overheard in a hotel bar in Ludlow, Shropshire, on the 10th March 2013. Submitted by John Killic.

Crustacean Odyssey

Ever since we were an item,
for years, we had an affinity
for crayfish.

They didn’t stay for long
in the garden.

They didn’t like the pond then
– was it running water?

It was very quick. It didn’t have time
to be un-running.

Did they all go together?
How could they know where to go?

They’ve got eyes and feelers,

Yes, but for underwater, not on land.
And how could they do that, across fields and roads?

I don’t think “road” is in their vocabulary.

I wonder if they went in a line...

What we don’t know is how
they got out of the garden. The fence
it comes right down to the ground.

Maybe a cat killed and ate them -
Oh no, then you’d see the shells.

A cat wouldn’t do that!

Yes it would, if they were moving around.
A cat will eat anything that moves.

Well, they just disappeared.



A conversation between an older man and a younger woman, overhead at breakfast in a Shrewsbury B&B, 2009. Submitted by MsJinnifer.

Counting on Him

He's thirty-three, for Chrissake,
thirty three. Thirty fucking three.
Three, three. This year
he turns thirty-four.
And he's still expecting me
to sort his life out. What have I done
to get to deal with all his shit?
Some times he forgets
I'm still twenty-one.



Overheard outside the Southbank Centre, London, at about 3pm on February 2nd 2013. Submitted by Judi Sutherland.

And Then Everyone Laughs

Our mothers hate justice.
All their kids complain about justice
and they hate it.

They want to put them in little
Seersucker suits.


Overheard on a train out of Philadelphia, 5th January 2012. Submitted by Wesley Brown.

Qoheleth

Overheard in the Co-op:
"You work bloody hard all your life
and then when you're finished
you have to go and see the doctor every day."


A tweet by @SeeingMore, 4th January 2012. Submitted by Marika Rose.

Slip

A tanka

Daddy, put it in
the microcave. The micro
cave? Oh, sorry, I've
not said that since my early
sixies. I mean microwave.



A conversation with my 7-year-old daughter, 11 June 2011.  Submitted by Neil.

The back of a bus

He likes you,
He's got money,
and a car.
What. Is. Your. Problem.





By Mark, overheard in the back of the number 18 bus in Cambridge UK, 16 April 2010.