Books

Guy #1: We had to read Catcher in the Rye and Uncle Tom's Cabin last year! It was ridiculous!
Guy #2: Aren't they the same story?

Fauquier High
Warrenton, Virginia

Overheard by:

Teenage girl: Mom, you have to buy me this book!
Mom: No, I don't, and I shan't.
Teenage girl: You what?
Mom: I shan't.
Teenage girl: “Shan't”?
Mom: Shan't.
Teenage girl: “Shan't”?
Mom: Shan't.
Teenage girl: “Shan't”?
Mom: Yes. Shan't.
Teenage girl: That's a word?
Mom: Yes.
Teenage girl: What's it mean?
Mom: It's a contraction of “shall not”, as in “I shan't buy you that book.”
Teenage girl: Ugh, fine! Enough shan'ting already!

Borders Bookstore
Olathe, Kansas

Boy #1: Are you reading fuckin’ SkyMall?
Boy #2: Yeah. It’s actually pretty cool…
Boy #1: Faggot.

Logan Airport
Boston, Massachusetts

Guy #1: Dude, I wonder how Orville Redenbacher is still in all those commercials when he's been dead for, like, a bazillion years?
Guy #2: Maybe he's a zombie.
Guy #1: Or a robot.
Guy #3: Or a zombie robot.
Guy #1: Seriously, dude. I think you've been reading too much sci-fi.

Bellingham, Washington

Theater professor: In Shakespeare's plays, SpongeBob would die.

Wayne State University
Detroit, Michigan

Professor: Sorry, I think I just gave a few of you post-traumatic Chaucer disorder.

Marist College
Poughkeepsie, New York

Overheard by: Russ

Drunk guy: Well, I’m, like, more of a social reader, you know?

Columbus, Ohio

Janeane Garofalo incarnate, walking past adult bookstore: What more does a feminist need than dildos and books?

Denver, Colorado

Overheard by: A. N. Cargo

Professor talking about the Canterbury tales: So the friar has this gold pin he wears, he wears it under his neck to keep his hood closed . . . It's bling!
(class laughs)
Professor: I never want to hear anyone say I'm not up on the times. They had this article in Time magazine, it was an interview with a rapper, the guy's name was “fifty cents.”
(class laughs)
Professor: But I'm cool, and I know that it's not “fifty cents,” it's “fiddy.”

Carleton University
Ottawa
Canadia

Chick #1: I worry that I'll become boring.
Chick #2: I think I'm more in danger of that than you.
Chick #1: What? You edit books about transvestite love!

Michigan

Overheard by: Meister E