It's a delicacy... in third-world countries.

[The class is discussing the vices and bad habits of horses. 'Kicking' is the subject being addressed.]
Kid who's always asleep: So what would you do if you had one who would not stop kicking whatever you did? ...just send him to the butcher??
Teacher: Umm... maybe if you live in Asia.
Kid who's always asleep: Okay.
[Discussion continues... 10 or so minutes pass.]
Kid who's always asleep: Asia?...oh. I get it. We're talking about horses, not cows!
[Note that the word "horse" had been said no less than 25 times during class.]

-Animal Sciences, fourth block

The Handsome Fellow Learns About Bras.

Girl: OHHH! I saw a really nice bag at Victoria's Secret yesterday, and I almost got it for your sister for Christmas.

Handsome Fellow: That sounds expensive. How much was it, mean she isn't spending a lot on you.

Girl: It was thiry dollars. You are right. If I was going to spend $30 at Victoria's Secret, I would put it towards a big 'ole bra.

Handsome Fellow: {Laughter} That's it. I'm posting that tonight!

(Make the connection.)

Lovely analogies, dear.

[A girl bursts in the door from a crowded hallway.]

Girl: There's more chaos than in Nagasaki out there!!

[The same girl, later in class.]

Girl: Yeah, they went faster than a set of hub caps at a Puff Daddy concert...

-Honors Algebra II, third block

Terribly sorry.

I'm hesitant to post this because the subject was not to be taken lightly. The deliverance, though, was pure 'Eavesdroppers' gold.

[Our substitute teacher refers to Mayo Clinic]
Student: What's that?
Substitute Teacher: It's one of the most prestigious hospitals in the nation.
Student: Oh.
Substitute Teacher: In fact, I had a sister who went there... [then to herself, scowling] ...she died anyway, though.

-Animal Sciences, fourth block

She does have a point...

Girl #1 (aloud, to no one in particular): Aww... tomorrow [guy's name] and I have our one-month anniversary...
Girl #2: But you're not even dating!
Girl #1 (defensively): So!?!

- Honors Algebra II

It's not as painful as it sounds.

[A group of students are discussing swimming.]
Guy: Yeah... I love to swim... and inner-tube. Oh, and I love cliff-diving.
Girl: How on earth do you do that?!?
Guy: Cliff-diving? Just like it sounds.
Girl: I still don't understand.
Me: You just jump off a cliff!
Guy: Yeah.
Girl: But how do you land?!?
Guy: Hopefully with your feet first.
Girl: But how does that not break your legs?
Me: You're jumping into water...
Girl: Oh...

- Animal Sciences

Way to Be Pansies, Guys

[WE are discussing how the draft might be reinstated soon.]
Teacher: So, the draft might be coming back.
Most Guys: WHAT?!
Teacher: You wouldn't be for that?
Guy 1: NO!
Guy 2: Well, how could you get out of it?
Teacher: You can be mentally or physically handicapped, have a dishonorable discharge, or be Amish. So you're alright, [Guy 2]!
Guy 2: What?
Teacher: [laughs]
Guy 3: So what if you have kids?
Teacher: Well, too bad. Maybe if your wife was pregnant.
Guy 3: Well, that's what I'll do when I'm 18.
Teacher: They wouldn't want you anyway...and good luck finding a wife so quickly.
Guy 1: What if you like got in and then shot yourself in the foot?
Teacher: That would be stupid.
Guy 2: What if you move to Canada?
Teacher: I wish you would.
Guy 4: What if you said that you'd just shoot the people on your own side?
Teacher: I'd clue them in and have the whole class here testify that you said that was your plan.
Guy 3: I'm just going to be Amish.
Guy 2: What if you, like, get one of the people on the other side to shoot you in your toe?
Teacher: They probably would have shot you before you could bargain with them, or your own troops would have!
Girl: [laughs loudly]
Guy 2: Shut up! You don't have to GO to war!!!
Girl: I hope you get shot.
Teacher: Women stay at home because men are too lazy to do anything there so the women have to do it all.
Guy 3: That's because they're in the kitchen where they belong!
Girl: Now I hope you get shot, too.
Guy 2: What if you didn't have hands?
Girl 2: Or fingers?
Teacher: Just shut up.
Guy 3: Well this just really scares me. I'm scared. Thanks, [teacher].
Teacher: [laughs and continues discussion]

-

This discussion lasted for about 30 minutes. I hit the high points, which was probably still too much...but whatever.

Right You Were...

"This is going to be on Eavesdroppers, I bet."

- Academic Team

-

You know who you are...

America's Great, Isn't It?

Girl: [to friends] ...so I found out that she liked [my boyfriend] and I yelled at her, I was like, "You are such a---"[pledge starts]"---I pledge allegiance to the flag..."
- First Block Honors English II

Ah, New York

Guy: We're going to go to that some day [points at a picture of the Statue of Liberty]
Girl: I'm not going with you to New York.
Guy: No, we're not going to New York, just to the statue of liberty!
Girl: Which IS in New York.
Guy: Oh.
-Government

[cue suspenseful music]

Stupid Guy: If I had a brain I'd be like really dangerous.
-Honors Algebra II

[Insert your own bad sheep pun.]

Most anyone who knows me knows that my family is one of the few in the area who raises sheep. In turn, sheep often become the topic of my conversations. Below are a couple of closely related comments/questions.

---

Girl: Hey, what sort of sheep does cotton come from?

[Two kids are having some sort of discussion about sheep... I'm not paying them much attention, then one of the two turns to me.]

Kid (pointing to his cohort): Tell him that only the female sheep produce cotton.

a close shave

I was driving home from Danville, and this conversation took place.

Me: That old man driving over there is using a pink RAZR!
Other person in car: WHAT!?!? Why would you be shaving while you are DRIVING?

Sorry. That just amused me....

AND NOW...Eavesdroppers Goes International!

This time we're in...Italy.

.

[Understand that Rome has the best ice cream in the world, with a gelateria on every street corner and everyone knows to get some ice cream. This couple was apparently uninformed.]

.

Another Traveller: So which ice cream shop did you go to?

Woman: What?! They have ice cream here? Nobody told me...[frowns profusely]

Husband: [sighs] Me neither.

- Star Hotel Michaelangelo, Outside Vatican City

.

Just a note: Earlier in the trip, the man got in a fight with Italian security at the Colosseum, and the woman got lost and left behind at the Vatican. Her husband did not go looking for her.

'Eavesdroppers' Goes Cruising

This is a good one I heard while I was on a cruise in Alaska.
-
[We are sitting in a karaoke bar on the ship. There is a woman a few chairs over who has just ordered a margarita. It is about 11 PM. As the time creeps past midnight, she has made her way through about 5 drinks. She has the umbrellas and glasses spread across the table at which she is sitting. All of a sudden she gathers the paper umbrellas and starts sticking them in her hair. She gets them all in there and admires her reflection in a mirror. We watch her for a while, and then decide we should get off to bed. As we are leaving, she speaks to the man sitting next to her.]
Drunk Rich Woman: I just LOVE these...margaritas...[pauses and pats her umbrella-filled hair] and the umbrellas, too!
- Aboard the Mercury

One for Thanksgiving...

This wasn't so much overheard as over-read.

On the back of a bag of cranberries:
TO FREEZE: Place this bag in the freezer.

Ooooohhh...I get it now.

Define "ignorant".

[I am walking with "Friend". Two of our other friends are a bit in front of us. There is a group of 3 or 4 guys between the two sets of us. They throw a football at - and miss - the two friends in the front. This makes "Friend" mad.]
Friend: [various insults and fury] ...and why don't you just get a life?
Guy 1: [stupidly] I tried to buy one at Walmart but it was too high.
Friend: [to me, but loudly so guys can hear] That's what's great about ignorant people. They usually don't know when you're insulting them and when they do they can't come up with any kind of rebuttal.
Guy 2: [even more stupidly] Huh?!
- HS Parking Lot

Four days, definitely.

[Again, in second-block Spanish...]
Student: My folder's in my locker... can I go get it?
Teacher: Sure, that's fine.
[Student leaves. 3 or 4 minutes pass, and the student returns with the folder, eating a sandwich.]
Teacher: Is that a sandwich?
Student: Yeah...
Teacher: Where did you get that?
Student: I found it in my locker. Three days isn't that old, is it?
Teacher: I hope not.

African-Germans? Maybe.

[After reading a selection from Elie Wiesel's Night, our Honors English II class is discussing Adolf Hitler's role in World War II.]

Teacher: Hitler would put just about anyone in his Nazi concentration camps... Jews, Gypsies, anyone who didn't have blonde hair and blue eyes.
Girl: What about African-Americans... what would he do to them?
Me (to myself): I doubt there were very many African Americans in Germany.
Teacher: Black people? Oh, I don't know. He probably would have done the same.

I'll give you a hint... it's near St. Louis.

[Again, in the I am in the school library, using one of the computers. There are two people, a guy and a girl, using the computers to my right.]

Guy: Where's Missouri??
Girl: Isn't it near Chicago? ...oh, no that's not right. It's to the west of Tennessee, that's where it is.

Another in the library...

[The librarian sees the sticker on my planner that proclaims "REAL MEN WEAR KILTS".]
Librarian: Have you heard the song called "Kilts"?
Me: No.
Librarian: [giggly expression] I'd hope not. [Quietly] It was a naughty little diddy.
- Library

How to please your emo friends...

Girl: You know, sometimes I just want to kill all these emo people. But then they'd just be all like "THANK YOU!"
- Library

1 maca, 2 maca, 3 macarina...

[I am in independent study, playing my violin. A class has to come in to practice their drums, etc. They all have different percussion instruments, and one of them sports a pair of maraccas.]

Guy: [drops maracca with a crash] Oops! I dropped my macarina!
-Choir Room

It brought me back to the nineties...

Approximately Seven...

[Three girls are working on a project on a computer in the school library. They start to print their project, and walk over to the community printer to get it. The printer begins to print page after page of text, the girls, knowing that it's not what they meant to print, pick up the papers and see that they are overdue book reports. They stand waiting for their project to begin printing, checking each page and laying it aside. After about fifty pages have printed, the librarian (who's been watching intently from behind the counter disgruntedly) walks over to the girls at the printer.]

Librarian(accusingly): Girls, how many trees do we insist on killing here?!?
[Picks up papers and fans them out.]
Librarian: Oh, these are mine.
[Takes papers hurriedly and walks away.]

You're about right for Paul, though.

Guy: ... and I'm Jesus in the play.

Girl: You're too FAT to be Jesus!

- Honors English II

"...we could look stupider..."

[Once again in the hallway in the morning before first block. Two girls are walking behind me.]

Girl 1: I hope my parents aren't home later...I bet they wouldn't even let us IN.
Girl 2: [snorts] Well, we could look stupider.
Girl 1: Oh! We could climb in my window if they're there.
Girl 2: Your room's on the second floor, though. Not that that makes this a bad plan.
-C Hall

I so badly wanted to turn around. I presume that they DID look quite stupid.

He got some great shots of the Boston Massacre.

[A man is discussing his recent visit to an art museum with his mother.]
.
Man: It was really neat. They had an entire exhibit on this William Ranney, I really liked it.
Mother: I don't know who that is.
Man: He did a lot of pictures of the American Revolution and early Virginia settlement and things like that...
Mother: Oh, so he was a photographer?

I'm so curious I can't contain myself.

The below wasn't actually overheard, but told to me by my mom. I believe it's worthy of recognition, though.
.
[A woman calls her local Natural Resource Conservation Service, the secretary answers.]
Secretary: Natural Resource Conservation Service
Woman: Yes, this [name], and I've canned my own garlic for 20 years.
Secretary: That's nice.
Woman: Yes, but this year I canned it and it turned green.
Secretary: Well, that's not really what we deal with here. We deal with natural resources. You need to call our local Family and Consumer Sciences Agent, [name].
[Secretary lists number, attempts to hang up.]
Woman: Yes, but aren't you curious about my garlic?
Secretary: Not really.
Woman: You're not curious one bit?
Secretary: Not exactly.
Woman: Are you sure?
Secretary: No, I'm so curious that I'll ask [name of FCS agent] all about it the next time I see her. Goodbye. [Hangs up.]

They were in the self-help section, too.

Kid 1: Mommy, are you and Daddy still fighting?
Kid 2: Yeah, do you still hate eachother?
Mom: Yeah...[in direction of "Daddy"]...because he's a DIRTBAG!!!
-Barnes & Noble

Constitution Day

Someone else actually overheard this, but here it is.

[It's Constitution Day. Our Government class is hosting a program for 5th graders where we taught them about the Constitution. Next to my station, where I taught about the Bill of Rights was where this took place. "Betsy Ross" told me about it.]

5th Grader: [to Betsy Ross impersonator] So how many times have you been married?
Betsy Ross: I've been married twice.
5th Grader: HA! My mommy beat you. She's been married THREE times!!!
-Constitution Day, HS Gym

Bovine Humor...

[Two girls are watching cattle being shown.]

Girl 1: That's an ugly cow.
Girl 2: YOU'RE an ugly cow.
Girl 1: I'm not a cow!... because I haven't had a calf yet... I'm a heifer.

I only feel a bit slow...

[Walking down a high school hallway towards the cafeteria.]

Kid 1: Was it just me or did that test make you feel retarded?
Kid 2: It was just you.

Another Geographical Error

GUY 1: So you're going to Chicago?
GUY 2: Yeah.
GUY 1: Are you gonna go to Chinatown?
GUY 2: No. What's that?
GUY 1: Where all the Japanese people go to, like, feel at home.
GUY 3: No, it's just where the Asians go, or something like that.
ME: [unable to contain myself] CHINAtown is where the Chinese go, and China and Japan are BOTH in Asia.
GUYS 1,2,3: Oh.
- Honors Algebra II

guess where...another football game

Girl: So are you a sophomore?
Guy: [about 14] Naw, I'm out of school.
Girl: You're probably just in like special ed or something.
Guy: [looks around] WHO's in special ed?!
- Football Game

Some Good One-Liners...

"¿Tienes tarea en...el...Spanish-o?" - Girl in Hall

.

"EW. She has a gap in her teeth and one between her brain and spinal cord." - HS girl of another at football game

.

"Are we going to hunt for Easter eggs?!" - Kid at Fall Festival (October)

.

A dictionary would do you good

"I don't go to church. I'm an anarchist."
- Honors Algebra II

Star Students

[In Spanish I, after being given an assignment concerning a 'quinceanera'...]

Spanish Student 1: So you're telling me that I have to write about some stupid Mexican girl and her stupid Kwanzaa?
Spanish Student 2: No, stupid, Kwanzaa's for Jewish people.

Tool Sale

I was at a discount tool sale with my grandparents, and this is one of the many rich tidbits I overheard.

{Two people, mid fifties are together, obviously married. The woman is in a wheelchair. Evangelist approaches....}

Stranger: Are you going to heaven?
Man: I don't know.
Woman: Right now we're going to the next aisle.
Stranger: Well, if you decide to go, here are some instructions.

{Stranger gives man a sheet of paper and turns to leave.}

I tried desperately to look like a good little sinner, mainly to obtain a copy of that paper. Thought it would be interesting. I guess I am perfect, because the old man ignored me.

It must be because pizza's Italian...

[Two women are playing a trivia game while waiting for their pizza.]
Woman 1: [Asking woman 2] Describe, in detail, the American flag.
Woman 2: [Promptly] Red, white and blue. 13 stripes, 51 stars.
Woman 1: [looks confused] That's what I thought, too. But this says there's only 50 stars.
Woman 2: People are just so ignorant these days.
-Pizza Hut

Italy's part of Asia, right?

Standing in the church building Wednesday evening waiting for services to start:

Woman (to me): That's a pretty Bible, Sarah.
Me: Thank-you. [Someone] just gave it to me.
Man: Yeah, that's nice. I just bought my wife one just like that and it says the cover is made of European leather. Look and see about yours.

I look and "Italian Leather" is stamped on the back cover.
Me: Yeah, mine says that it's Italian.
Man: Well that's odd, because my wife's is European, and it's just like that.

Folding turtlenecks and talking trash

[Note: This is a post that was previously featured on my other blog. I had been posting conversations on there and the we decided to make this blog. So I thought I'd catch this blog up to my other! There are also other conversations on Sarah's blog. Enjoy!]
-

I was in Kohl's tonight shopping when I heard two workers talking. They were two girls folding turtlenecks and I was just a few racks away, and their conversation lured me in. They were talking (with harsh language) about a girl they didn't like who went to their school/college.
The best part went as follows:
-
Girl 1: So then we went to the store and got a couple dozen eggs.
Girl 2: Then what?
Girl 1: We went to her house and we SO egged it. Her mailbox, her house, and even her car.
Girl 2: Yeah?
Girl 1: And her parents knew it had something to do with her, because she's just so [insert adjective of choice here]
Girl 1: But we're good friends now. She'll just never know I'm the one who egged her mailbox and everything will be just fine!
Girl 2: Cool!
-

"Your hair is totally flaming!"

CHEERLEADER: So I caught my hair on fire Saturday...I was just sitting there and my friend was like "Whoa! Your hair is totally like flaming!"
C's FRIEND: Awesome!
CHEERLEADER: Oh yeah.

Self-Adheisive... (Stop Licking Postage Stamps!)

[We are in Walmart, in the crafts section. Sunday afternoon.]
Mom: Excuse me?
Worker 1: [bewildered] Yes?
Mom: Do you all have self-adheisive felt?
Worker 1: No.
Worker 2: But we do have the kind that you can stick to things.
Me: [smirking] That might just work.

Three Halves Make a Whole??

I'll begin with a "classic" overheard at a high school football game, a great place to overhear random dullards, earlier this fall.
.
Girl #1: How many quarters are there again??
Girl #2: Two...? I think that's right.
.
...I'm not mathematically inclined, but I believe I know the answer to this.

contributors

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The Stupid Starts Here

This is the beginning. The beginning of a (hopefully) lengthy collection of the appallingly stupid things we have seen and heard. Come eavesdrop with us.