August 2, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Overheard In July 2014

With Comic Con and so many treks outside of the house this month, I overheard a great deal more weird and absurd things than I normally do. I also overheard something heartbreaking. Balance… And all of that.

It’s the weekend. Let’s just get right to the eavesdropping:

At the Rose Bowl Flea Market, an old man was setting up his booth to sell his wares. He looked up and when he saw me, he approached me and said, “Have you come here to collect your iceberg detector?”

Huh? I stood there blinking. Then I walked away. All day I asked my husband what the man meant by that comment. We still do not know. But now I want to say something absurd to a random stranger that will make them wonder all day.

It is important to spread the love.

And why do I look like I need an iceberg detector?

And why do I need one?

And most importantly… What the heck is an iceberg detector?

I was at Trader Joe’s buying flowers. The older woman in the lane next to mine was also purchasing flowers. She was with her friend.

The cashier commented on her pretty flowers and she responded, “My husband passed away four years ago today. My friend didn’t want me to be alone. At my age, I am not looking to meet anyone else. So, what else am I going to do at 6:25 tonight besides leave flowers at his graveside?”

This broke my heart.

And made me appreciate her friend. I was glad she was not alone. At 6:25 that night I thought of her and hoped she was okay.

I was at a diner (which by the way is the absolute best place to eavesdrop). Two elderly women were chatting about their week.

They were discussing the merits of Bingo and the cost involved (we eat early).

“I went to… What is it called… Is it Weird Wednesday?

“You mean Wacky Wednesday?”

“Yes! Wacky Wednesday!”

“I got six cards for the price of two. You should come with me next time.”

The other woman agreed to do so.

Before they could discuss their future Bingo plans, a baby shrieked in the restaurant for the third time in five minutes.

One of the women pierced her lips and leaned over to the family sitting at a table next to their own. She spoke to them in a conspiratorial whisper, but I could still hear her.

“One time I was out to dinner and a kid screamed just like that. Before the kid could finish that scream, a waitress popped a lollipop in the kid’s mouth.

Well, it worked, but there was a bigger problem.

Other kids saw her give that kid the sucker and then they began to shriek for their own. One child was quieted, only now the rest of ’em were screamin’.”

She began to chuckle and leaned back into her own booth, lost in her memories.

At Comic Con, I overheard the following snippets of conversation from numerous people:

I can’t wait for that pizza!

My feet hurt!

Greg has a strict rule of not working out the week before Comic Con.

Please keep moving there’s no stopping here.

I cannot wait for my paycheck (said by a security guard)

I had no idea it would be like this!

I try to tell her everyday but everyday she comes. So far she has been a loser all three days. There is no benefit to waiting hours and hours.

There are going to be many things that you want.

I could see her undercarriage!

I was at the doctor’s office and I overheard the following conversation between a grandmother and her four year old granddaughter:

“Now remember, when you are camping, pick your things up off of the floor! It is going to be crowded as it is and with the new baby and all of those diapers, there is not going to be a lot of room.”

“Grandma, did you ever wear diapers?”

A soft laugh and then, “Yes, but it was a very long time ago. And they were not the diapers they have today. In fact, your mom did not have those kind of diapers either.”

“What kind of diapers did you guys wear?”

“Well, they were cloth and we washed them.”

“But what did you do with the -” she whispered the last contents of that sentence but I think we can assume that it had to do with contents, too.

“We flushed it down the toilet.”

“Eeewwwwwwwww!!!”

The little girl had many more questions but the grandmother distracted her with questions of her new puppy. Which from the sound of that conversation, seemed like that puppy could have used some diapers of its own.

What did you overhear last month? Anything interesting? Did you find your iceberg detector?

If you missed last month’s “Overheard In,” you can find it here.

July 1, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Overheard In June 2014

Oh, the things that were overheard this month. Really just very small snippets of conversation. I was lucky we went on vacation, because we have spent so much of our time at home. If you missed “Overheard In” last month, you can find it here.

Things I heard kids say in the pool at our hotel:

“Please don’t let me die.”

“Why don’t I go underwater and you stand on top of me?”

“I want you to hit me with the ball so I can tell my mommy.”

That last line was said by a child. And, okay, I usually will not go here, but that child. Was a product of his mother. And if you picture the most annoying child you can imagine, the child was a perfect caricature of that. Oh, that is so mean. But it is true. I kept looking for the child’s mother, because he was about six years old and much too young to not be supervised.

Well, the mom finally walked through the water just in time to see her son do a backflip, whilst almost cracking his head on the side of the pool, and land right on top of another child. On purpose. For both of our sakes, it was lucky that child was not my own.

This is what the mom said to the other crying child:

“That was quite the crash. I am sure it was an accident.”

We gave up our cabana and left because she did not just have that one son. But three. There were THREE of them!

When we were at my favorite breakfast place in Maui, a little whiny boy ran up to tattle on a little girl at his table. It was obvious that the little boy had his mother wrapped around her finger as she replied:

“Emma is an evil, evil child.”

That response still makes me giggle and I have to admit to using it in a random point in recent conversations.

My son had to get changed in our hotel room. Instead of stating that he was getting changed in the bathroom, he said, “Nobody come into the place where you clean your hands. I will be getting changed.”

Now I think of the bathroom as the place you clean your hands.

At a restaurant:

“My momma always used to say, ‘you can’t run faster than a truck.’ She was right. I could never run faster than my daddy.”

I love that. It has some scary truth to it.

When we went to visit the crater, we were amongst tourists. There was a mountain where you were obviously not supposed to climb. And there were teenagers obnoxiously climbing it. The father of the boys in the most monotonous voice called to his sons:

“Get off the mountain. Use the trail.”

The sons replied, “We are using the trail.”

They were not.

Ten minutes later, I overheard a huge buff man tell his son, “If I wasn’t in such a good mood, I would have waited for those kids at the bottom and kicked their a**. I cant believe they would climb up there. Disgusting.”

Those kids had no idea that the climb was not the most dangerous part of their day and lucky that the view was so pretty.

Incidentally, that man generously volunteered to take a picture of my husband and myself together.

We did not turn him down.

Did you overhear anything good in June? Anything worth sharing? I would love to hear it.

June 1, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Overheard In May 2014

May was a weird month. I kept getting bad news. And it seemed those around me were receiving bad news. And the bad news compiled into a quicksand hole of stress that I could feel myself struggling through as I tried to meander through each day.

Well, two nights ago, we had incredibly good news (about my son’s health). If you are wondering why I am sharing this in my overheard post, it is to explain the scream of jubilation you must have heard from your house.

Sorry about that. It was from my husband.

It went like this:

“Wheeeeeeewwwwww! Waaaaoooooooeeeeeewwwwww!”

This was repeated and fist pumped and jumped through the house. I told him I had never ever seen him so happy. It made the month of May close on a sweet note.

With that said, I spent much of the month at home with my son or in the doctor’s office, so I did not hear much. But what I did overhear, I will share with you:

At The Cheesecake Factory we sat outside and to our left, was a beautiful German couple in their early twenties. They were hipster cool in an easy-not-on-purpose kind of way. They would have made the people actually trying for this look fall on their knees and rip at their hats.

They ordered a chocolate malt and a slice of cheesecake. For lunch. Or breakfast. It was eleven o’clock. Which again, was cool without trying to be cool.

I don’t think I have ever had a moment like that.

The waitress returned after a few minutes to inform them that the kitchen thought they might be out of malt. She told the couple that they might want to pick something else on the menu.

They both grinned at her and said, “This is okay. But we do not know this word, ‘malt.’ What is it? What does it mean?”

Well, the waitress was not expecting that answer. And she just kind of stood there trying to determine if she knew the answer. I don’t blame her. I am not sure what I would have said myself.

So she said, “It’s the stuff that makes a malt a malt.”

And they grinned wider.

And she hastily left, returning minutes later with cheesecake…and a chocolate malt!

“They found some malt in the kitchen,” she said.

She left the desserts on the table with obvious relief.

The couple only ate two bites of cheesecake and a few sips of the malt before they asked to take the food to go.

Then they cooly sauntered away. Both of their perfect hats faced towards a new adventure.

I volunteered at my son’s school two weeks ago (for the first time all year. It is hard as they get older. They get bigger. I get lazier). The fifth grade was doing a colonial day reenactment. They got to pick five items to make that they would have made back in the colonial days. I was helping at the book binding booth.

It was actually quite comical to hear the different conversations around me. Here is one:

A tall fifth grade boy sweetly grabbed one of the pillows his friend had made, and rubbed it on his cheek. He put his head on the pillow that was so small it barely fit into his hand, and proclaimed in the most innocent voice, “Oh. They feel so good. I should have made this.”

In the triage across from us (at the ER), there was a two year old who had ingested her grandparent’s prescription medicine. She screamed as they force-fed charcoal into her system. The mother sang Barney lyrics in an eerily high and enchanting voice, “I love you. You love me…” And then it randomly changed to, “Clean up. Clean up. Everybody do their share. Cle-”

The little girl left a few hours later: tired, confused, perfectly healthy. And the mother handled the whole thing with such gentle grace.

After they left, one nurse said to the other, “you have charcoal splattered all over your scrubs.”

The other nurse shrugged and said, “I don’t have another pair with me.”

To which the first nurse softly said, “Don’t worry. It really isn’t noticeable unless you are looking for it.”

And it was wrong. Oh, so wrong. But that mother’s last song began playing itself in my head.

“Cle-”

In the hospital bed next to us at the emergency room, a fifteen year old boy had severed his big toe almost completely off. I did not ask how, but believe me, I was curious.

When he was being discharged (after they had performed the reattachment surgery), they gave him some interesting advice.

“Make sure you keep changing the diaper* on your toe. I know it is unusual, but the diapers will absorb the fluids that are draining.”

Who knew?

*I believe this is what I heard. But I could be wrong. I cannot find any information on diapers being used for wounds. So, maybe I was delirious with exhaustion or maybe it is a new thing. Please take it for what you will.

I was at Trader Joe’s purchasing peonies and a few other staples, when I went down an aisle, and saw a mother pick up a jar of Trader Joe’s Clarified Butter and say to her daughter:

“Let me just clarify something for you. This. Is. Butter.”

I laughed. And I bought the clarified butter. I had forgotten I had wanted to try it. Making it is a pain.

How was your month of May? Did you overhear anything good?

If you missed April’s “Overheard In”, you can find it here.

May 2, 2014 by gn0mel0ver

Overheard In April 2014

April was a lovely little month. It was the only month since starting this feature that I did not have to omit anything. I did not overhear anything disturbing. And that is a wonderful thing.

I was at the hair salon and a woman in her late fifties had just finished getting her hair done. She was glowing. Her hair was bouncy. And so was she.

As she was exiting the salon I stopped her and said, “You look beautiful. Your hair looks great.”

She smiled widely and reached up in wonder to touch her shiny hair. “Do you think so? I think I really love it. I haven’t done something like this in years. I have horses and I have had a long pony tail for twenty years.”

“This feels so nice.”

We wished each other a good day. Her husband pulled up to pick her up and I could see her excitement as she practically skipped to the car.

It was a nice moment to witness.

I was at the store and a little girl of about three years old was standing next to her mother at the counter. There was a teddy bear being sold above the little girl’s head, it’s fluffy body slouched over near the mother’s arm.

The little girl pointed to the bear.

“Bear?!” She exclaimed.

“Bear!” She said again.

The man checking them out looked down at the little girl and then at the mother and said, “Ha! Does she really want a beer?”

The mother looked confused.

She asked the little girl what she wanted to which the little girl exclaimed, “bear!” She pointed to the obvious stuffed animal next to the oblivious two adults.

“Oh!” They both realized at once.

Then the mother said to the man, “She wants the bear. I’m the one who could use a beer.”

Then the mother and daughter left the store.

Bearless and Beerless.

I know how they feel.

My husband overheard this recently:

“Would you like to be part of the lunch run?”

“No thanks. I grabbed McDonald’s while I was at Walmart buying ammunition.”

My family and I went to Disneyland last week. It was very crowded and we took a moment to people watch. We sat on a bench and enjoyed frozen lemonade in the breezy afternoon.

I wrote down the snippets of conversations I overheard as people quickly made their way by us:

“I want bubbles!”

“I need a piece of paper.”

“LOVE! Love. Love. Love. Love. Love.”

“I don’t feel like eating a lollipop.”

“When I first met Holly, I was super, I don’t know… distracted.”

“Someone needs to go hold hands.”

“MOM! MOM!”
“What?”
“You want some banana flavored ice cream?”

“Don’t fall out.”
“Dad! Do it again!”

“It’s basically a liquid churro.”

“Ellie. Not a good choice.”

“Well, this is the happiest place on Earth,” said in the saddest voice.

“Shooting explosion!”

“She got the cricket!”
What?”
“Melanie got the cricket in our room!”

“Don’t wrap things around your neck!”

“So… He went to her room and slept.”

“The password is 55622.”

I forgot to include this funny conversation I overheard in the bathroom between two very young intoxicated young women in Las Vegas last month.

“I’ve like never been like one of those girls who has planned their wedding since they were like five.”

“Yea. Me neither.”

“I hope it’s not going to be lame.”

“Will there be alcohol?”

“Yes.”

“Oh good!”

“I just like hope it doesn’t rain. And I need to like figure out colors.”

“But will there be an open bar?”

“Yes.”

“Oh. Good.”

“I haven’t even like decided what kind of dress I want. What if I like get it too short?”

“Will you be serving booze?”

“YES!”

“Then it will be awesome.”

We were waiting for a table at a restaurant in Disneyland. Next to us was a party of eight also waiting for a table. We were each given a pager that would light up and buzz when our table was ready. The family had never heard of this before.

“I don’t understand. You’re not going to call my name?”

“No. You have a pager. It will go off when your table is ready,”

“Okay.” The lady sat down next to her friend. They both examined the device.

They spoke amongst themselves,

“Is it going off?”

“I think so. Or maybe you’re holding it wrong.”

The friend went up to the hostess, “I think you gave her a broken thingy because nothing is happening and we’re hungry.”

The hostess looked impatient. “That is because your table is not ready yet. Your pager will go off when your table is ready.”

“But I’m hungry.”

“I understand that, but your table is not ready.”

The friend returned to sit with the other despondent woman. They both sat staring at the little black mysterious device.

Five minutes passed. They argued amongst themselves. “Does that flashing light mean the table is ready? Why couldn’t they just call our name? I think the device is broken.”

Finally, they got up, slammed the pager on the hostess counter and pronounced, “I’m not waiting anymore! This thing is broken!”

The hostess watched them walk away. Then she carefully put away eight menus.

They would have been next!

They missed some good food.

And seeing the device, “go off.”

Instead they were the ones who went off and I showed my children that being patient does pay off.

And also that their mommy can make chili cheese fries absolutely anywhere.

Our family was at the gas station and my husband had gone inside to purchase a bottle of water. I was watching the open glass doors to the gas station. I noticed a stocky man with tattoos trailing up his flailing arms. He was having what appeared to be a heated conversation with the gas attendant.

I knew my husband was witnessing the whole thing and I was excited to hear what was going on.

The man exited the gas station and got into a station wagon with a young blonde woman in her twenties. They did not look at each other and appeared to be upset.

When my husband got to our car, I asked him what he had happened.

He said, “that man was just going off on how he didn’t understand women. How his girlfriend had left him and then came back. Then he bought her flowers and she left. Now she came back but moved out. He doesn’t know what she is doing.”

I took all of that in and then told him I saw the happy couple drive away together.

My husband said he assumed that the man was talking to the gas station attendant because they were friends, but when the man left, the gas station attendant said to my husband, “Man. You know you have woman problems when you are telling complete strangers about them.”

My husband said, “You didn’t know that guy?”

And the gas station attendant said, “No. He just came in here and started ranting.”

I used to think hairdressers got all of the dirt. But I am now revising my theory to gas attendant. They must see and hear the craziest things!

Did you overhear anything nice or funny in April? Please share!

If you missed last month’s “Overheard In,” you can find it here.

Gnome Lover

Stumbling through life while still having fun

conversations

Overheard In July 2014

Overheard In June 2014

Overheard In May 2014

Overheard In April 2014