People like to talk. They like to say all kinds of things—from the nice, to the not-so-nice, to the downright weird. As well all know, sometimes people can get so caught up in their love of talking, that they may not realize just how loud they’re talking—or who else can hear what they’re saying.
Comments heard by people who weren’t meant to hear them can make for a very interesting listening experience. And reading about such comments afterward can be almost as much fun as having been there yourself!
Here are 42 of the craziest things people have ever accidentally overheard others say.
42. Don’t Mess With Grandma
With no context, I saw a tiny frail old lady turn toward her companion, point to someone in the store, and say "I could absolutely kill that guy."
41. The Line Was Very Busy
I picked up my house phone one time to find a conversation already in progress. And that's how I learned my stepdad was having an affair with his brother’s wife…
40. Art Attack
A very young girl gave her mother a picture she drew as a gift while on public transportation. I overheard the mother then rudely reject the gift. It made me quite sad, actually.
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39. The Loch Ness Monsters
"I've been bitten in the privates by two separate Scottish terriers..."
I've never wanted to chase someone down the street and ask to hear the rest of their story so bad in my life…
38. Keep Your Private Life Private
I overheard a girl I had a huge crush on in high school graphically telling her friends about what she had been doing with her boyfriend during their spare time.
The level of my crush on her deflated a bit after that, and I could never unsee the images she put into my imagination.
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37. Hammer Away
I recently overheard my mother, who had been complaining of stomach aches, saying that she "needed a jackhammer to get the poop out of her butt."
Thanks for that, Mom.
36. Foster the People
I was listening to two of my kindergarten students talk about Christmas the day before break. One asked "Do you believe in Santa?", to which the other replied "Yes, but he doesn't come to my house because I'm in foster care."
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35. A Dream Come True
At a bar, I recently overheard someone say "I had the weirdest dream last night! I was having doing the deed, and then all of sudden my dad walked in with McDonald’s coffee!"
I feel like if that had happened in real life instead of in a dream, he wouldn’t have been so casually just laughing about it...
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34. Alternate Courses of History
An old couple was arguing at the grocery store about whether or not they should buy X brand of cookies, even though Y brand was $0.50 cheaper. The man said that if he had married "Edith" instead of his wife, Edith would have let him get the nicer brand of cookies. His wife replied that she could have married "Xavier" and actually been wealthy and not living in a rat-infested apartment.
33. Don’t Drink the Yellow Water
I was swimming in the ocean. A guy passes by with his little girl on his shoulders.
“Daddy, the ocean tastes like pee!” she screamed out.
"No, it doesn't, dear. You don't even know what pee tastes like"
“Yes I do!” she replied.
A long silence followed...
32. A Teenager in Love
Sitting behind two teenagers on the train:
Guy: "You didn’t use birth control?!"
Girl: "Well, not the entire time."
I finally understand how teen pregnancy happens...
31. Insides Out
This was around a pretty sketchy group of people. Without context, I heard "So then he stands up, and his organs just start spilling out. We're sitting there waiting for the ride to the hospital, and the dude is just casually cradling his intestines, smoking a cig."
I felt it was best not to ask about it.
30. One of Life’s Great Mysteries
I was at Disney in high school and I heard a guy say to someone "You're tiggity, but ain't good enough to eat—so put your shoes back on!"
I'm 35 and still have no idea what that meant.
29. One Big Happy Family
I was sitting at a bar and heard the bartender say the following to another customer:
"So did I tell you that I'm either going to be a grandmother or a great aunt?"
Dude looks at her confused. She replies with:
"Yeah, my son and his wife got into a fight, so she slept with his cousin (my nephew) and now she's pregnant and they don't know who the father is."
I'm like, what?!
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28. Letting the Cat Out of the Bag
When the police showed up at my door to tell me that my upstairs neighbor was dead, I overheard the EMTs say "We're going to have to double bag him."
I get it, but it’s just not a pleasant thing to hear about someone you knew.
27. Keep Your Friends Close, and Your Enemies Closer
I was at the grocery store last week, and I overheard a woman in the produce section on the phone say something along the lines of "If you keep calling me, I will go to your house with a metal baseball bat and tear your head apart with it, you loser." She was probably 45 or 50 years old.
26. She Sounds Like a Quack
I was a waitress and I had just taken an order from a table of students who were all over the age of 18.
One of them seemed pretty dim with the questions she was asking me, but nothing too stupid. One of her friends ordered duck. As I walked away, I heard her ask her friends what a duck was. They then started to explain.
How the heck do you get to be over 18 and not know what a duck is???
25. I Suspect Some Foul Play
I overheard two guys in conversation walking by me, without any context.
Guy 1: "A chicken, a whole chicken!!"
Guy 2: "That’s right, an eye for an eye."
That's all I got before they were out of earshot.
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24. There’s Something About Him You Should Know...
I was upstairs in the church organ loft looking through music on a quiet weekday.
Downstairs, I heard a conversation going on, so I peered over the loft railing and saw the pastor sitting in a pew, talking with a young female. She was telling him that she was strongly attracted to the church's Deacon—a single guy, in his early 30s—and wanted to know if he would introduce them.
I could tell that the pastor got flustered because he had eyes on the Deacon to become a priest, which would require him not to date women.
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23. Fast Fight
I was behind a nice car at the drive-thru for fast food. Suddenly, a lady gets out of the passenger side door and yells "Buy my OWN milkshake?! Tuck yourself in at night!" then stormed off into the night.
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22. You Were No Accident
I overheard my mother say "I only had her so I wouldn't have to go to work anymore" about my younger sister.
Turns out that as I got old enough to need less supervision, my mother realized that she'd suddenly be expected to actually make financial contributions like a normal person. That clearly wasn't for her, so she "accidentally" got pregnant again. Took me a long time to realize what I'd actually heard.
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21. Reaching the Limit
My brother was talking in his sleep once, and simply said, "Sorry to rain on your parade, but no one can count that high!"
20. Investigative Journalism
My husband and I were at a fast food place. We took our son to the kid’s area to burn off energy so that we could more easily finish grocery shopping afterward.
A mother was in there with her three kids. One by one, she would make each one of them sit down for an interrogation session. "Where did your dad sit at the spring concert? Who did he sit by? Did he sit by Mason’s mom? Did he talk to any of the other moms? Was he laughing and smiling when he talked to Carter’s mom? Did you guys come right home afterward?"
She was writing it all down. Each child was not allowed to go play unless they answered her questions.
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19. You’re Never Too Old for Insults
An old man talking to his wife: "You know what you need? A lobotomy. That’s right, a freaking lobotomy!"
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18. Battle of the Bladder
As a young child—maybe eight years old—I overheard an older woman graphically talking to a friend about her bladder issues and how she was treating them. This was the first I had ever heard of such a thing. I was terrified and scarred for life by the image.
17. Allergic to That Peanut Butter
"Jimmy, I am sick and tired of you sticking your body parts in the peanut butter jar!"
Jimmy is my brother, and I was in the living room eating a PB&J sandwich.
16. I Can Hair What You’re Saying
Worked at a summer camp for a few years. I'm convinced kids don't realize you can hear them when you aren’t looking directly at them, even when you're in the same room literally three feet away. Best conversation I ever heard was between two nine-year-olds.
Kid 1: “My brother is totally going through puberty and he's only 11!”
Kid 2: “Lucky!”
Kid 1: “I know, he even has armpit hair!”
Kid 2: “If I had armpit hair, I'd shave it off and glue it on my face.”
Kid 2: “That’s... that's... a great idea!”
Me: ???
15. Duck Tales
A few weeks ago, I was at a park watching the ducks swim and frolic in the grass when this guy sits down on the bench a few feet away from me.
He was talking on a Bluetooth about collecting a bounty on some guy who had been robbing cars in Southern California. He then went on to brag about how he had finished chasing and subduing a guy convicted of assault in my city.
Apparently, the car thief was worth over $200,000 and this violent criminal was worth $10,000.
I’m sure it was all nonsense. He was probably just trying to impress one of the ducks in the pond. Those ducks are pretty glorious.
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14. Now I Know Why We All Scream For Ice Cream
I was once walking behind two REALLY good looking girls in the street and heard one say to the other "I was so constipated yesterday! I just wanted to get it out with an ice cream scooper." Gross…
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13. Don’t Hold Your Breath
I once overheard a girl tell her friend that she had a scary moment earlier in the day when she suddenly forgot how to breathe.
To this day I don't know how to react to that.
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12. You Never Know Who You’re Really Dealing With
Not messed up, just sad.
Around 2004 or 2005, I was at a meeting. During a bathroom break, I heard two men talking. One of them had a brother who was killed in the 9/11 attack on the Pentagon. Shortly after the attack, the brother's widow gave birth to their second child. A year or so later, the brother’s widow died of cancer.
The man speaking adopted his brother's kids. He and his wife had never planned on having kids, but they stepped up to raise them. It was a big adjustment, but he loved the kids and was doing the best he could for them.
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11. He Wanted Mash, She Wanted Scalloped
I was camping with my family as a kid and overheard a drunken couple's marital spat. I don't remember much, except for the guy finally losing his mind and screaming out "DARN IT, BARBARA! IT'S THE FREAKIN’ POTATOES!!!" as loud as he could.
To this day, I sometimes wonder exactly what they were fighting about.
10. If You Can’t Bean ‘Em, Join ‘Em
I was a photographer at a wedding and, while the bride was getting ready, I heard two bridesmaids in their mid-20s talking to one another. One told the other that she had recently found out that beans are not just little bits of potato, as she had always thought.
Wow, what a revolutionary discovery!
9. Good Thing He Didn’t Succeed…
While working out at the gym, I overheard someone say “Nah, forget that guy! He tried to radicalize me.” So many questions!
8. Run Like the Wind
I once overheard a bunch of lowlifes planning how they were going to rob someone for money to get their next hit.
I got out of there real fast...
7. Playing the System
I just heard this yesterday while in line at a department store.
"Don't worry, you don't have to pull out money. Three guys I'm sleeping with will be there, and they'll pay for the drinks. Just wear something risqué and we might have to do some things we don’t want to do afterward, but we'll be covered."
They honestly didn't even look old enough to go to a bar…
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6. Riches to Rags
I was fixing a woman's computer when, right in front of me, she got a phone call informing her that her mother had suddenly died. She went from a powerful Executive Assistant to a fragile little girl in three seconds. It was heartbreaking.
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5. Curiosity Killed the Cat
I'm not proud of this moment.
It was a long time ago and I would rank it as a pretty severe low point. One time, I was riding my bicycle alongside a bunch of parked cars. There was a cassette tape sitting on top of one vehicle. It piqued my curiosity, so for some reason, I spontaneously reached out and grabbed it.
The tape sat on my desk for a long time, until one day when I decided to pop it into the player and give it a listen.
It was a murder confession. I would guess that a lawyer had left it on the roof of their vehicle, and I was the lucky jerk that grabbed it. The kid who was confessing sounded about 16 years old, and he was confessing to killing his mother. At one point, the detective asked the kid "What did she do when you stabbed her?", and the kid just broke down sobbing and said "She yelled for help". A big piece of me died when I heard this.
I simply couldn't believe what I was hearing.
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4. Down the Rabbit Hole
I woke up around midnight on Easter when I was about six, hoping to get a glimpse of the Easter Bunny. Instead, I ended up hearing my divorced mom crying to my dad on the phone, asking him to come get my brother and me because she has no money to get us any chocolate for the holiday. She was hysterical.
I went back to bed and pretended to be surprised when my dad showed up in the morning to come get us. He told us that the Easter Bunny got mixed up about what house we were going to be at.
3. The Circle of Life
When I was an undergrad, I was working in a nursing home. Many of the residents suffered from dementia, and one older lady often would say, "Kill those babies. We've got to kill those babies." Sometimes she would repeat that all night long without realizing I could hear her.
2. Cheater Cheater Pumpkin Eater
Overheard my wife saying "You look really handsome, babe!" She was on a Facetime call with the guy she was cheating on me with and didn't hear me come in early from work. Still the hardest thing I've ever heard.
I listened in the hallway for a few minutes, then packed a bag and left. 10 years of marriage and we have a two-year-old together. It's pretty insane.
1. Putting on a Show
I was watching Jurassic Park in the theater, and the dino poop scene comes on. You know, the one where she's reaching in, shoulder deep in dinosaur doodoo. The woman sitting in front of us leans over and whispers to her husband, "Remind you of something?"
I could not hold it together.
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