30. June 2008 by Ben.

Kid: “I hate college.”

Guy: “Are you gonna be a college dropout?”

Kid: (indignant) “How am I supposed to know?  I’m eleven.”

– Overheard on the Green Line

You may decide which of these movie quotes this real-life experience most resembles:

Option 1:

Guy: “What’s going on?”

Eric: “I don’t know.  But could you do us a favor and try to catch the lemur?”

Guy: “I don’t know how to catch a lemur.  I’m a dentist.”

Eric: “Well I don’t know how to catch a lemur – I’m nine!”

– Mr.  Magorium’s Wonder Emporium

Option 2:

Joey: “There’s gotta be a way that we can stop this from happening.  Ooh!  Okay, you come with me and you tell them that the house is haunted!”

Mackenzie: “What are you, eight?”

Joey: “Okay, let’s hear your great idea.”

Mackenzie: “I don’t have any great ideas.  I am eight.”

– Friends

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29. June 2008 by Ben.

Concluding the mini-series of quotes from my nieces, we have these three from just this weekend.

Jess: (contemplative) “I want to paint my nails.  (beat)  Do you want to paint my nails?”

Jess: We should make a scrapbook together!
Rachel: (enthusiastic) Ooh, yeah! (suddenly accusatory) Maybe when you give me my scrapbook stuff back!

Jess: (hopefully) “Can I have all your mints?  And you can’t have any of mine, in case you were wondering.”

Then, when I could no longer bear to let these gems (many of which remain unprinted) fly about the room without someone writing them down, I went to get my computer.  This prompted:

Jess: Wait, what’s a blog?

I never did come up with an answer.

Posted in Jessica, Quotes | 1 Comment »

28. June 2008 by Ben.

Jessica (author of the best retort ever uttered) has always had a sarcastic streak.  At the age of about four, she sat down to lunch with her sister Rachel – Jess with a plate of bite-size hot dog pieces, and Rachel, who hated hot dogs, with a bowl of vegetable soup.

Having two different meals apparently prompted a moment of confusion.

Jess:  Whatcha got there?  Vegetable soup?
Rachel:  Yep.

Jessica contemplated this a moment, took another bite of hot dog, and then dumped the rest of her plate into her sister’s bowl of soup.

Jess:  Whatcha got now?  Hot dog soup?

Posted in Jessica, Quotes | 1 Comment »

28. June 2008 by Ben.

A few years ago we went to see the Fourth of July fireworks at Lake Champlain – held every year on the third of July.

Some people arrive early in the evening and claim space on the grass with their blankets and picnic baskets, but we chose to walk around and get ice cream and enjoy the atmosphere.  We found a row of people standing at a railing just before the fireworks began, and joined them.

Immediately a delegate from the lawn squatters behind us approached and suggested – all but insisted – we might want to sit when the fireworks started.  Gesturing at the people around us we suggested there’d be little chance of that.  Besides, it’s not like we’d be blocking the view of the sky.

We heard her report back, quietly, “They’re not gonna move.”  A woman immediately shouted up to us – me, my brother, his daughter, and our two nieces, all clumped together – “Maybe some day you’ll have kids and then you’ll understand.”

Without missing a beat, my niece Jessica whipped around and shouted back, “What are we, the next door neighbors?”

With that, I introduce a mini-series of quotes from my nieces, and from Jessica in particular.

Posted in Jessica, Quotes | 2 Comments »

27. June 2008 by Ben.

I walked up to the teller at my bank yesterday and had this exchange.

Me: “I’d like to make a withdrawal.”

Teller: “Do you have an account here?”

I don’t understand.  Do they get a lot of people making withdrawals who don’t actually have accounts?

Posted in Overheard | 1 Comment »

26. June 2008 by Ben.

In the IT front office, a woman carries on a conversation about how to choose a new password, while her small child watches.  Then, out of nowhere:

Girl, age 5: “This one time, my daddy had a hole in his pants, and I could see his underwear.”

Coworker: “And did you fix the hole?”

Girl: “Nope.  We threw out the pants and got new ones.”

Posted in Kids' Quotes | 1 Comment »

22. June 2008 by Ben.

I forgot that interspersed with the plot in When Harry Met Sally are vignettes of elderly couples on a couch recounting how they met. For example:

Her: “We fell in love in high school.”
Him: “Yeah, we were high school sweethearts.”

Her: “But then after our Junior year his parents moved away.”
Him: “But I never forgot her.”
Her: (smirking) “He never forgot me.”

Him: “Her face was burned on my brain. And it was 34 years later that I was walking down Broadway and I saw her come out of Toffenetti’s.”
Her: “We both looked at each other and it was just as though not a single day had gone by.”
Him: “She was just as beautiful as she was at 16.”
Her: “He was just the same. He looked exactly the same!”

This is just reminiscent of the scene in Gilmore Girls (Say Something, episode 5.14) where Sookie tries to soothe Lorelai by recounting a romantic story.

Sookie: “I heard about this couple on one of those morning show, similar to you guys - all lovey-dovey, perfect for each other, you know, headed for marriage - and something happened, and they broke up in their senior year of college, even though they were madly in love with each other. They moved to different parts of the country. They married different people. Oh, had kids, grandkids. Then their spouses died, oh, and they were available again, and they talked and they hooked up, and now they’re together and they’re happily in love after forty years apart.”

Lorelai: “That’s a horrible story!”

And finally, Common Sense Media cautions parents about these clips.  Besides the obvious an obvious warning about the famous orgasm scene, they also note:

The short vignettes highlight long-lasting, loving relationships. May create unrealistic romantic expectations for teens.

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21. June 2008 by Ben.

Upon someone new entering the room:

Her: “I want to arm wrestle you!”
Him: “I’m leaving right now though.”
Her: “Wait, come back! I don’t even know who you are! You have to arm wrestle me!”

Upon finding a taker and beginning to arm wrestle:

Her: (yelling as one would yell “I’ll never give in!”) “I will not divorce you for tax settlement purposes!”

– Things said at parties

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11. June 2008 by Ben.

“You look like a Go Go Girl.  (beat)  It’s not a bad thing – I like Go Go Girls.”
– One coworker to another

I planned to link to a picture of a Go Go Girl for context, but when you Google that phrase (in Google Images) you get “Go Go Girl Sexy Adult Costume” in the first result, and “Go Go Girl Child Costume” in the eighth.

New rule:  Anything that can be made into a “sexy adult costume” should be unavailable in “child costume” form.

Posted in Overheard | 1 Comment »

8. June 2008 by Ben.

It really hurts subscription sales when I leave a show and overhear someone say, “That’s the best I’ve seen them do in a long time!”

Posted in Anecdotes, Overheard | No Comments »