Perk up your ears when you're in public and you'll overhear all kinds of conversations. While many of them can be silly and mundane, sometimes you can ear things that are creepy or thoroughly messed up.
Below are the most messed up conversations people have overheard. Check them out!
(Content has been edited for clarity.)
Ah, The Memories
“I was watching ‘Jurassic Park’ in the theaters and the dino poop scene comes on. You know, the one where she’s reaching in, shoulder deep in dino crap.
The couple in front of us, the wife leans over elbows her husband, ‘Remind you of something?’
We could not hold it together.”
Please Be A Joke
“This is more a story of someone overhearing me, but I was on a bus once with my friend, it was late at night and dark out. As he was getting off I was like ‘Hey, text me when you get home.’
He was confused as to why, so I said ‘In case you get stabbed or something, I dunno. So I know you’re safe.’ He scoffed at me and basically said something like ‘Who would stab me?’
Cue the guy behind saying ‘I will.’ totally deadpan, and he did not seem like a joking type.”
The Ties Must Be Cut
“My girlfriend at the time overheard a conversation I was having with my mother. This was years ago when I still periodically spoke to the woman. My sister and niece had been living with my mother after my sister’s partner had abused her and they fled. My mother is an awful woman who is unable to maintain a relationship with anyone for longer than a month at a time, so shortly after accepting them into her house, she kicked my sister and niece out, and they were forced to go live with our aunt.
My sister fell ill and was diagnosed with cervical cancer. She was 26, newly alone and was now living with my aunt who she barely knew and didn’t get along with. Christmas was coming. I live in a city about four hours away and called my mother to present her with an ultimatum that she talks to my sister and we get together for Christmas or I’m not making the four-hour trip. She refused, continued to insult my sister and finally, I snapped and told about the diagnosis and that it looked bad.
I was getting upset, so my girlfriend came over to sit next to me on the couch just as my mother screamed into the phone ‘I DON’T CARE IF IT’S CHRISTMAS, I DONT CARE IF ITS CANCER, I’M NOT CALLING THAT LITTLE RAT.’
I had spoken of how my ‘family was crazy’ and my mother was a less than desirable person to be around, but mostly in a self-deprecating humor type of way. But the look on my girlfriend’s face in that moment made me realize how insanely messed up that was. I had grown up being told whatever nasty stuff she could think up on a regular basis but it wasn’t until I saw someone else react to her that I realized how dysfunctional it was.
I don’t talk to her anymore and my sister has no inside lady parts anymore but she’s 32 now and doin’ okay.”
The Worst Kind Of Deed
artproem/Shutterstock
“I was at the movies and I heard this:
‘Just wait until your dad hears about this.’
‘Mom! It’s not that big of a deal.’
‘What you did was disgusting. It was a betrayal of my trust. It was a betrayal of everything I believe in, but most of all, you betrayed yourself. Once you have the two together, you can never enjoy the one without the other.’
‘Mom!’
‘It’s no skin off my nose. I’ve never done what you did. You are never going to go back to a time that you haven’t done this.’
At this point, I am dying to know what this kid did, and I’m trying to stay near enough in the crowd to hopefully find out when they are joined by the father.
The mother points accusingly at the kid,
‘He had a soda in the movie theater.’
‘Mom, it wasn’t a soda; it was a lemonade!’
‘You’ve mixed sugar and the movies. Now you will constantly want to snack while you’re watching a movie. You know I raised you never to eat in front of a screen.’
Who knows how this guy is going to turn out when they turn 18?”
Get Some Ice For That Burn
“I was in a bar one night and a couple was breaking up. She was yelling at him because he didn’t want to buy her another drink because lo and behold, she had too many to drink and making a fool out of herself. To finish her tirade, she screams in a high pitch annoying voice:
‘…And every time we hooked up, I faked it!’
To which he looked at her deadpan and calmly asked:
‘What makes you think I was hooking up with you for your benefit?’
It was a real mic drop moment.”
A Long Held Grudge
“I once saw an old man talking to his wife and he said, ‘You know what you need? A lobotomy. A darn lobotomy!'”
It’s Always The Root Vegetables
“I was camping with my family as a kid and overheard a couple’s marital spat.
I don’t remember much except for the guy finally losing his mind and screaming, ‘GOOD LORD, BARBARA! IT’S THE GOSH DARN FREAKIN’ POTATOES!’.
To this day, I sometimes wonder exactly what they were fighting about.”
Asking The Real Questions
“I was walking past the checkout line in Sears while a middle-aged woman was on the phone.
I heard her say ‘Well, why are you covered in blood?'”
Knowledge He Need Not Know
“I was at a local lake and heard a kid complaining about a toy he got for his birthday. The mom said, ‘Don’t complain! Do you know what I had to do to get those presents?’
The kid responded ‘Yeah! You had to sleep with that guy.’
The mom shushed the kid and they continued walking away.
It took a few years until I understand that she had sold herself to get a birthday gift for her kid, and the kid kind what happened.”
You Never Know Who’s Listening
“My home phone line when I was a kid would occasionally pick up weird signals. Nothing terrible, just like a radio station or a cooking channel. It always threw us off for a second because we’d be on the phone talking about tomorrow’s test and then there would suddenly be a guy talking about tomatoes or some random crap.
Well, one day I was on the phone with my best friend and all of a sudden, static kicked in hard, and then clear as a bell these two people having a conversation about hiding a body:
‘Should we sink him in the lake or bury him on the farm?’
‘Farm, I’ve got the shovel, I’ll be there soon.’
It was an actual conversation, not a TV show. And we never heard anything about a murder or a missing person, so I guess they hid the body well enough.”
That’s Quite A Prayer
“I worked at a home for men with developmental disabilities for several years during college and part-time/volunteer after college. I overheard many amazing, hilarious, disgusting conversations between joint and several of the individuals living there. Nothing, however, would top this night of debauchery.
I was walking through the three adjoined living areas, each with 10 rooms and 20 or so individuals living there. The diagnoses of each varied significantly, from Down Syndrome to Fragile X, to Autism, many had lived there for decades. This was an archaic tribute to the times when institutional settings were the norm, and the fancy thing to do when the well-to-do had a child with disabilities, was to send them off to the middle of nowhere.
Kenny was a treat of a guy to work with. He had Down Syndrome, and an uncanny knack to order a Big Mac, fries, and a regular Coke at McDonald’s. He would always bemoan that various tasks were ‘Not part of my program!’ and other sundry rants.
He was definitely a challenge to work with, and he liked nothing more than a weak mind to manipulate.
This is where another guy, Corey, comes in. Corey was typical. A college-aged student, with a common problem for people hired at this facility: he wanted to get paid $2/hour more than he would get at pizza hut, even though he had no idea that working there was not just challenging, it required significant patience and understanding of human behavior.
He was never a good employee. He worked third-shift and was always sitting around playing video games, never checked on the guys enough, and was a jerk. So I wasn’t surprised that night.
I was walking into the home Kenny lived in, from one of the adjacent homes, when I observed Corey standing outside of Kenny’s door.
‘Dear God,’ you could hear Kenny begin his prayer. ‘Please kill Corey, and Pat, and Bob, but not [me], no, I like him.’
‘KENNY!! WHAT DID YOU SAY!!’
Corey lunged at Kenny and ‘restrained’ him. He was only on Kenny for about one second before I threw Corey violently against the wall. I fired him on the spot.
The ridiculousness of the prayer mixed with the sadness of Corey attacking him has always stuck with me. Though many years have passed, I still think of those guys often.”
It Stays With You Forever
“I was doing laundry in a coin-op, and I was sitting in the waiting area. These two ladies came in, and I guess they thought they were out of earshot. The one asked the other for some money to do a cycle and the other girl asked where her money was. The girl said, ‘I’m on lockdown, girl. The old man found out I was turning tricks for side change and he put me in my place. It’s a shame a girl can’t just sell for money without catching heat.’
It still stands out years later.”
It Is Fake News
“I generally enjoy listening to conversations of old people in public, especially on subways, about modern technology and how they imagine it works. Recently, I heard an old man say:
‘I don’t play the lottery anymore. That’s all faked anyways. I mean, they draw the numbers live on TV, and only seconds later they tell you how many people have won the jackpot. I mean, that’s not possible, so the lottery must be fake.'”
These Things Are At Odds
“I overheard this at a bar recently:
‘I had the weirdest dream last night, I was hooking up with this guy and then all of sudden my dad walked in with McDonald’s coffee.’
It’s probably not the most messed up thing in the world, but definitely made me laugh.”
Exposing The Truth
“I was on the bus, and a small girl and her father were sitting in front of me. The kid was misbehaving a bit and wouldn’t sit still even though her father would tell her to settle down several times.
Eventually, he let out an exasperated ‘Why won’t you do what I tell you to?’ and the little girl answers, matter-of-factly:
‘Mom always tells you to stop washing your balls in the sink, but you still do it!’
Needless to say, they quickly got off that bus as every person around them was desperately trying not to laugh.”
Armed And Ready
“I was waiting inside doctor’s office while nurses gossiped outside my door about random stuff. I overheard:
‘That’s the good thing about having just had a baby though, if my husband tries to sneak in the shower with me I just squirt him in the face with milk.’
‘That’ll teach him!'”
Not Quite An Apology
“A woman and her man arguing on the sidewalk.
The woman said while sobbing, ‘I can’t believe you smoked the rent money!’
The man replied with, ‘I said I was sorry, okay? If that’s not good enough for you, screw you!’ before walking away.”
Get With The Times
“I was on the metro and overheard a guy say, ‘Well I don’t care if he’s a lawyer, we don’t date black people in this family.’
Seriously, what is wrong with people?”
This Is My Stop
“There’s a guy who rides the same bus as me to campus. Every time he sits near me, I always hear him mumbling the weirdest stuff under his breath. He has made weird comments about women and people who are different.
It got to the point where the bus driver had to tell him to watch his mouth or he would have to get off. This guy responded with ‘I kill people.’
It was scary. I get uncomfortable riding the bus around this guy. It’s sad because I think he has a problem and can’t get the proper care for it, but it’s still creepy.”
An Evil Trick
“I used to work at a grocery store. One day, I was in the middle of stocking eggs when this lady on her phone walked up to get some eggs, and I overheard her say how her friend was driving and her friend’s ex whom she had just broken up with called her. The ex told her friend that he forgot his keys in her glove box and he needed her to check to make sure they were in there. The friend, who was driving, said she’d look when she stopped. He said it was urgent and needed her to look. She opened the glove box and a mouse was in there. Apparently, the friend was deathly afraid of mice.
The ex-boyfriend placed a mouse in her glove box and waited until he knew she was driving, hoping she would freak out and crash.”
That’s An Oxymoron
“I was at a high school graduation party for my best friend in 2007, and a boy she was hanging out with at the time was there. He had to use my friend’s house phone to call his mom, and the last thing he said to her before hanging up was ‘I’m a grown man, mom, I’ll skateboard home!’
We still use that to this day.”
Thanks, Mom!
“In my eighth-grade science class, we were challenged by our teacher to create a device capable of extracting a coin from the bottom of a narrow jar, without touching the edges or sides of the jar. The coin was also stuck to the bottom of the jar with putty.
On the day of the challenge, I was sitting at my desk reading since I had already finished the work, and I overheard Nicole sitting across and to the right of me discussing to a friend about the coin project.
I heard Nicole state in pure confidence to her friend that ‘my Mom said that it was a silly project, all you had to do was fill the jar with water and the coin would float to the top, but I told her that wouldn’t work since the coin was stuck to the bottom with putty.’
I think this was one of the few times I just slackjawed at someone’s stupidity.”