Category Archives: Overheard in the City

One might think that the Midwest is full of white, blond, Scandinavian and Germanic people who talk funny.  That is mostly true, but also you’ll find the most peculiar and distinct perspectives and backgrounds, shaped by their homogeneity.  This is a snippet of the many overheards I’ve encountered while simply being out and about in Minneapolis.

Judgmental girlfriends.

“The way he talks, it’s like he has some kind of speech impediment. He doesn’t talk like he’s from North Carolina.”

Regrets over missing the sermon.

“I didn’t go to church yesterday but I went on the internet and so there was a page that was sort of written out.”
“Oh, I love that prayer Pastor Dave did, that analogy of a candle, that’s great you know. ”

Devil in the details, when it comes to bridal dresses.

“It was somewhere up north… Coon Rapids… or something, whatever, it was a house attached to the shop or something… It was really weird. Anyway my cousin works there she can help you. Well it’s really my husband’s cousin. Y’know it’s a run your own show kind of thing.  They have a lot of dresses under a $1,000. My sister in laws best friends is getting married and they got their private dresses.”

Friend time is the best time.

“It’s really close to Fargo and my brother lives there. That’s nice. Well y’know we use to be coordinator for the friends and have the weekly happy hour. There’s this place where you can enter a tournament where whoever brings the most people after a month will get free drinks.”

The food is too good.

“It’s too rich, I just think it’s too rich for me and I just can’t take it… Here you try it.”

Judgmental eaters.

“Did you get apple cider?”
“I had pumpkin pie earlier its awesome.”
“Yes very Autumnish of you to do.”
“We didn’t have any pumpkin pie earlier we had this apple crisp that was really runny.”

World travelers.

“When I was in Panama, there was this party called Sauce that was hot and spicy.”

Get to know your higher ups.

“I just can’t believe after 2 hours meeting my boss we’ve found common ground in Prozac.”
“Do know him on Facebook?”
“He’s like I dunno… (describes man)”
“He’s a rising star in the company.”

More to come!

I usually mind my own business at a coffee shop but these people were having the most outrageous and amazing conversation at Hard Times that I just had to record it.

“So we went to our guy that was there, I met before, and he let us stay with MTV and the playboy bunnies in a suite that night. We partied with these playboy bunnies and MTV crew and everything. There was a hot tub and everything. That was just one night, he thought that story was awesome. He said no I could swing a deal with a crackhole hotel down the street in the middle of nowhere for $900 for all of us to stay the whole week. So we paid them $900 and we all got to go. We made him pay for all our booze and party passes. And he sold his computer for this.

So we ended up having a way better time because there were no rules and no security guards. To even get past the first security guard this one had no security and nothing.  Our pictures our parties and our stories. The playboy girls liked us we partied with them VIP. Trish came up and visited, she was on the Real World Cancun. She wasn’t on it exactly, she was one of the ones that the guys tried to hookup with her. Luke hooked up with her. She brought all her friends over and we got all VIP for all this. We had so much more fun getting kicked out of the all exclusive vacation.

We all got bed bugs and bites all over.”

“Screw Cancun I’ve never been to Mexico.”

“I never want to go back to Cancun ever again.”

“It’s just overpriced.”

And then they headed out onto a snowy Riverside Ave.