Eavesdropping

Overhearing a conversation can be educational, scary, and really entertaining. Think tweens or teens in a mall. Need I say more? Some might say that eavesdropping is a job requirement for any writer. Others might say that eavesdropping is flat out rude. Sometimes, though, it’s impossible not to overhear a conversation. Has anyone out there not experienced the person on the cell phone using a really big voice in public? Raise your hand if you have not. If your hand is up, you’ve either been in retreat at Walden Pond for the last ten years or you live an area of tranquil bliss where cell phones are not appendages.

Anyway, I’ve overheard my share of the educational, the scary, and the hilarious. Below you will find some of my favorites.

A fifteen-ish girl in a mall: “She said that I needed to get over myself.” Girl snorts. “Yeah, right. Why would I want to do that?”

Man on a cell phone in an elevator: “I don’t care how contagious you are! Get you’re *bleep* into the office for that presentation.”

Miffed female to nonchalant male: “You didn’t tell me that you had a girlfriend.

Nonchalant male: “Would you have gone out with me if you knew I had a girl?”

Female: “NO!”

Male, now smirking: “Exactly.”

Girl on cell phone: “The garbage was all over the floor. The pie plate licked clean.” Pause. “Dog? No, our dog isn’t that gross. My brother ate that tossed out pie.”

Thirty-ish woman speaking to another woman on a train: “How can you kiss a guy who smells of scrambled eggs and cough drops?”

Mother to her twenty-something son: “You throw your personal information onto the internet in the way that zoo monkeys throw their poo.”

Wow. Remind me to whisper when I’m out and about in the world.