A sternutation, or a sneeze, is a semi-autonomous, convulsive expulsion of air from the nose and mouth. This air can reach speeds of 100-200 mph.

Twenty-something girl on Metro who COULD NOT STOP TALKING to her companion:
"So do you hold it in, or is that just the way you sneeze? So you've never been able to just let loose and go 'AH-CHOOOOOO!'? What, are you afraid your eyes are going to like fly out of your head or something if you did that? Not that I think that woud really happen. But you know when you have let out a real huge sneeze...."

What's the going rate for weed these days?

A bum/entrepreneur corners another guy in line for a concert.

Bum: "Hey man I only got $2 and tickets are $10. Can you help me out?"
Cornered guy: "Uhhh..... fine, here's $1."
Bum: "You know if you gave me 8, I could get in..."
Cornered guy: "Sorry dude... you're gonna have to get the rest some other way."
*Pause*
Bum: "You wanna buy some weed?"

-- Waiting in line at The Warehouse Next Door

We love you, Miss Hannigan!

At lunch downtown, there were two guys, one with a bandage around his ankle.

The non-injured guy said to the guy with the sprain: "You gotta come up with a better story on how you got injured, like you were saving orphans from a burning building. Everyone loves orphans...Except their natural parents, I guess."

It's ok, it's ok. I will make you lamb.

Girl 1: Yeah, the food order looks good. But ____ isn't here anymore, so are there any vegetarians left?
Girl 2: Oh, the new girl must be a vegetarian, she wears patchouli.

-- Dupont

Too bad he's not related to Martha Washington man, she'd have a big fat bowl waiting for him everytime he came through the door. She was a hip lady.

White dude(to group): "Did you know I'm related to George Washington's mother?"
Other white dude: "...who was black!"

-- Waiting in line at The Warehouse Next Door

Somewhere, on the side of some road a Native American is shedding a single tear.

Scene: Staffer is walking new intern through the office - introducing her, showing her where to find office supplies, where to throw paper away.

Intern: Wow! We really go through a lot of paper don't we?

Staffer: Yep.

Intern: Where is the recycling bin?

Staffer: Oh, we don't recycle - we're Republican.

He's a glass half-full kind of guy.

Bum to girl sitting on a bench: "How you doin'?"

Girl: "Ok, how are you?"

Bum: "I'm a homeless drunk, I'm about 50/50."

--Downtown, near Metro Center

It's hard out there for a bum

Scary bum #1 to scary bum #2: "I mean, i just about kicked his ass! I mean, shit, he don't wanna mess with me. I say, it's hard out here for a pimp!"

--Mt. Pleasant

Have you seen this man?

[We believe we have another sighting of our shoe shining pimp (May 16, 2006)!]

Scene: Hideously drunk man, dressed like a cowboy pimp, keeps calling himself "White Pony Tony," and claims you can Google him and find his shoe shining business on it.

We'll let the eavesdropper continue the story:
"We got on the train (he wouldn't leave me alone), and he then tried to talk to a kid who boarded the train stops later, asked him if he was African, and went on and on about how the kid should learn how to speak [the kid's] native language.

When White Pony Tony got off the bus, the kid tells me, "I see that guy every single day. Dude never remembers talking to me. He's always drunk as hell."

--Rosslyn Station

We appreciate his frankness.

Indian guy with thick Indian accent talking on his cell phone: "You an idiot. If I were home, I kick your ass."

-Capital South Metro

If at first you don't succeed ...

Guy: "But your first date with him sucked! Why did you go out with him again?"
Girl: "It was a combination of his persistence and my boredom."

Ireland's Four Courts, Courthouse

When you know she's not the one

Guy to Girl: I knew it could never work with her. I couldn't talk about fucking her mom.

--Clarendon

Are they letting tourists be Metro Conductors now?

Train conductor: "Yellow Line, Mt. Vernon Square. Next station, Lawnt Plaza...I mean, L'Enfant Plaza..."

Same platform, different train, one minute later:

Train conductor: Yellow Line, Mt. Vernon Square...sorry, I mean the Blue Line to Largo Town Center. Next station, L'Enfant Plaza..."

(Eavesdropper's response: Uh, dude, that's quite a few more stops down if you're on the Blue Line.)

--Pentagon Metro Station

He's a poet and he doesn't even know it

Woman at party: "My boss asked me to define the difference between flexibility and apathy after I decided not to attend a voluntary staff meeting. Everyone pretty much hates her."

Man at party: "Yeah, that ho gotta go."

--Foggy Bottom

Hey, it's more effective than "Please stand clear of the doors."

Train conductor (in smooth announcer-type voice): "Blue Line...Largo Town Center..."

(switches voice to yell at someone holding the train up)
"Girl! Git out tha doorway! You holdin' me up. I ain't got all day!"

(back to announcer's voice) "Blue Line...Largo Town Center..."

-Blue Line at Pentagon City Station

Part 2: The Suits on children

Scene: Same professional men at breakfast, the conversation turns to children

Suit 1: [name]'s old lady is pregnant. Can you imagine a tiny little [name] running around?
Suit 2: That would be awesome.
Suit 1: I wonder about Mark and Heather. Do you think they're gonna have another baby before they split up?

-- L'Enfant Plaza promenade

Part 1: The Suits on marriage

Scene: Professional men, talking over breakfast.

Suit 1: Look at you with your nice tie and everything.
Suit 2: Thanks! My wife got it for me in Seattle.
Suit 1: Well, that was nice of her. I thought she hated you, man. No, seriously, I thought she hated you.
Suit 2: ... Dude, what the... just don't go there, man.

-- L'Enfant Plaza promenade

Greatest. Prayer. EVER.

Commuter, apparently praying while walking with girlfriend: "And thank-you, Lord, for Kentucky Fried Chicken, and Taco Bell."

--Metro Center

Oh my god, Becky. Look at her butt. It is so big. She looks like, one of those rap guys' girlfriends...

Homeless Guy: "Girl, you got a fat ass! I wanna get up in there and smell it!"
Girl: "Thank you."

- K Street

Well, as long as it's Grand Theft Auto and not Super Smash Brothers.

Guy 1: "You sure do seem to have a lot of girls on the line these days ..."

Guy 2: "Yeah, but deep down, I know I'll do something to eff it up, and I'll be back to playing Grand Theft Auto all night long within two weeks."

-Guapo's , Shirlington

"Life is like Marion Barry, It's not all that it's cracked up to be."

Young, metro-lookin' guy at the bar, about 4 flourescen-tinis in, to two young women next to him :

"'Taxation Without Representation' my ass! These people keep electing that crackhead into public office! People that dumb don't DESERVE any rights."

- Raku, Dupont Circle

And does he also sing showtunes in bed?

Girl: "I sometimes think my boyfriend was gay in a past life. Like when I catch him lint-rolling his bed. "

--E Street, Foggy Bottom

Let's play a little game I like to call Bluetooth or Crazy!

Middle-aged woman dressed in semi-professional attire (with no cell phone or communications tools) sitting alone on a bench looking wildly about and nervously talking to herself:

"The Pentagon just has to pay me $750,000 plus consulting... and then I'll be happy"

-Outside of the Renwick Gallery

Let's get ready to RUMBLE!

Guy selling t-shirts, yelling the phrase on his shirts:
"Mets suck ... deez Nats!"

Guy continues: "Come on! Start a fight on the metro!"

-RFK Stadium, after the Nats loss on Sunday

Even if it's an old cliche, anything with whore in it is funny

Obese man walking down 7th St. during the heat wave: 'Damn, it's hot! I'm sweating worse than a whore in church!'

-- by Verizon Center

Oh the times they are a changin'

Girl on phone: I mean I hope this keeps us safe, it's good to know that my hair gel is now considered a weapon of mass destruction.

-- West End

As long as she doesn't take Prozac or Paxil...

Guy to girlfriend: "We'll be just like Tom Hanks and Katie Holmes."

-Red line at Farragut

Beggars can't be choosers ... but they can be taxpayers

Bum yelling at a group of DC-corporate-types who walk by without giving him any change:

"OH YEAH?! Well, at least I never lied on my income taxes!!"

-M Street Bridge between Foggy Bottom and Georgetown

Help! My iPod displays a sad iPod icon ... and that is because you are stupid.

20-something girl at Apple "Genius Bar" repair center, getting her iPod fixed because it got wet.

Apple repair dude: "So how wet did your iPod actually get?"
Girl: "Well, it was just ONE wave, so..."

--Apple Store, Clarendon

No no, he wasn't on crack, remember? That bitch set him up.

Late 40s Black Woman to Man She Just Met: "I hate all this stadium shit. Driving everyone out. At least when Barry was on crack, we all had jobs and the seniors were safe."

--DC juror pool

Betcha Oscar the Grouch never had that problem.

Girl: "Everyone on the metro looks cranky. I'm cranky too today. Why am I cranky? I think it's for a different reason then the commuters. Why am I cranky? Oh yeah, it's because I stayed up too late having sex last night."
-Metro

You have smoked yourself retarded.

Stoned girl on the other side of the curtain: I ate a stress ball.
Nurse: Okay... was it a foam ball? Gel? Did you just take a bite?
Girl laughing: I ate a a stress ball!!

a few minutes later...

Doctor: Now this makes me uncomfortable.
Girl: The nurse told me to take off my pants.
Doctor: Are you sure? Why don't you put them back for the CAT scan?
Girl, still laughing: I ate a stress ball.

-- GW ER

Yogilates is for serious. Google it, I dare you.

Guy: "...yeah that's why I wouldn't want to lick my own ass, because something bad like that might happen"

Guy: "No, even if I could lick my own ass, I just wouldn't do it."
Girl: "Well if you could lick your own ass, you could lick your own balls too."
Guy: "That's some yogilates shit."

-- Old Town

Washington DC, it's as easy as 1-2-3, simple as do-re-mi (except for that whole J street thing).

Note from eavesdropper:
These girls were not the usual crowd, even for evening rush hour.

Pretty Girl 1: Wait! I think we missed our stop!
Pretty Girl 2: No, we're getting off at P St. This is N.
Pretty Girl 1: (after a pause, angrily) Whatever, I forgot the alphabet.

-- 14th Street Bus

I'm a drinker, not a fighter.

Guy: "So do you like watching guys fight?"
Girl: "Ummm. . . what?"
Guy: "You know, like, guys getting into fights at bars?"
Girl: [pause] "Um, no."
Guy: "Oh, I just figured that since you were Irish . . ."

--Arlington

So they didn't just make up the name Walt Whitman Service Area?

Guy: "So, have you ever heard of Molly Pitcher?"
Girl: "Yeah, of course, it's the rest stop on the New Jersey turnpike!"
Guy: "Um, well, actually, she was the first American woman to fight in a war ....
[awkward pause]
"That's kind of why they named a rest stop after her."

--Rosslyn metro

DC in a nutshell.

Pretty girl: (yawn)
New to the city guy at her table: "Why does everyone in DC constantly yawn?"
Pretty girl: "Because we're so boring."
-- St. Ex

Ode to post-college drinking.

Tuesday August 1, 2006 11:15 pm

Drunk guy on OnTap bus trip: Guys, I can't go to work tomorrow, I'm gonna call my boss. (whips out cell phone, calls boss's cell phone)
Drunk guy to boss: Hey man, I'm not going to make it into work tomorrow.
(Boss responds, we can hear part of his conversation): Why? Where are you? What are you doing?
Drunk guy: I'm on a school bus!! I'm on a school bus!!
Boss: What?
Drunk guy: I'm on a school bus! Where's the appletini mix?

-- Bus trip returning from Guster concert

That's it! I have had it with these motherfucking snakes in this motherfucking circle.

Homeless crazy guy outside Dupont Metro: There are at least 15 snake related deaths in DC every month.

-Dupont Circle Metro

Adrian! Rocky! Adrian! Rocky! Lincoln?

Lincoln Memorial steps.

Two tourists (men) are walking up the steps. One starts running up the stairs singing the Rocky theme song. He finally gets to the top and starts spinning around, waving arms up in the air and still singing. His friend finally arrives and shakes his head at him.

Tourist 1: "Dude, wrong steps. Wrong city."

Uncle Sam wants YOU ... to save a woodpecker or two

"... so the army does these combined arms drills. But they have to make sure they don't disturb the pine trees where these endangered woodpeckers live or else the treehuggers will get mad. I mean, I guess it's all good that we save natural resources and everything, but I can't help thinking about that these 18 year olds that go out and mark the trees... wouldn't it just be better if we trained them to blow stuff up instead?"

-- (Presumably) a defense contractor getting out of an ATL to DCA Delta redeye.