Staircase wit
Here's your one last chance to get your licks in! Send us your story, tell us what happened, let us commiserate with you over your lame response... and then you can stun us with the clever, biting response you would have most certainly made had you had just a little more time to think!
Read these stories and their accompanying after-the-fact rejoinders, and then submit your own! Maybe you didn't think to say it then, but you can say it now — share with us the kind of wit you can exhibit if only you have a moment to compose your thoughts.
Click here to submit your own story!
Here are our stories retold,
albeit with pithier endings:
From Carlita:
The Hills Are Alive
What happened: One day while I was in tenth grade, I went up to the history teacher's desk to ask a question about some stuff we were studying. Well, when I was bending over to point to something in the book, I started hearing these sniggers from my classmates, and realized that a button on my blouse had come undone, giving the male teacher a full view of my department-store bra and tiny high-school breasts. The teacher was real shy and bookish, maybe even gay, but that didn't stop the catcalls, "Show them things, baby!" "Show-off slut!" etc., etc.
What I said: You don't really think I could speak? I turned super red and walked back to my desk. If I would have had a self-destruct button, I would have pushed it, I would have disappeared myself. It was awful. I was mortified.
What I SHOULD have said: "Oh, shut up already and grow up, everybody. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill!"
Comments (20)
From Angela:
The Witch and the Wardrobe
What happened: I have to go this wedding in a couple of months, and I've been stumped for a dress, because it's going to be outside in what promises to be gorgeous spring weather. My not-rich-enough but certainly thin enough coworker, I'll call her Esmerelda, has seized on this. Even though she is a size 4 and I'm a 10 (please believe that I am a 10), she had the nerve the other day to tell me about this dress she has that would be just perfect, and just bubbled all over herself, offering to lend it to me, and saying that the size difference was no big deal, lie, lie, lie, and in the end, insisting, "Listen, I really, really want you to come over to my house right after work and try on this dress."
What I said: I stammered something about really thinking that it just wouldn't fit, really, really, but thanks, I'm sure it's perfect for her but I really couldn't, besides I was too busy, etc.
What I SHOULD have said: "Why?"
Comments (21)
From Escella:
Four Hands
What happened: Tennis lessons. I don't like them. I don't like the instructor. He said to me, "Use your FOREHAND!"
What I said: Nothing.
What I SHOULD have said: "But what about my other three hands?"
Comments (7)
From Rainbow:
How badly did I want him?
What happened: I had been ABSOLUTELY CRAZY about this boy for over a year. I was COMPLETELY obsessed. He was all I ever thought about, all I ever talked about, and I ran around telling people I was in love. He hardly knew I existed. I mean, i sat next to him EVERY DAY in band. But we never talked. And apparently someone told him that i liked him. At a school dance, I finally plucked up the courage to ask him to slow dance. As we were dancing, he said, "Is it all right if we ... just be friends?"
What I said: "Of course!" and then mumbled some stuff about the situation...
What I SHOULD have said: "What if I said 'no'? What would you do then?"
Comments (2)
From Express Shopper:
Life in the Fast lane
What happened: So, I'm a student staying at my college over the summer, and am starting to buy groceries for myself. It's memorial day, and I'm not in the mood to wait behind a ton of people buying plates and beer, so I limit my purchases to 13 items and go through the express lane (Maximum 15 items.) Because these were my weekly groceries, they looked like a lot more than they really were. Two not-so-adorable old biddies were impatiently waiting behind me with their potato salad, hemming and hawing, obviously thinking I was some stupid kid who didn't know how to count.
The check-out lady obviously picked up on their impatience, and, after ringing me up, asked, "Do you need help carrying ALL these items?" In a patronizing, demeaning manner, obviously intending, after I left, to participate in a friendly insult about me with the witches behind me.
What I said: So I said, trying to be polite and courteous, "Oh, no, thank you," and I left quickly.
What I SHOULD have said: "No, I think I'm okay with my 13 items. Now, if I threw some potato salad on top of that, I might break my hip like some old bat."
Comments
More stories (click title for full story):
Yo momma redux
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A student walks into a bar...
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Bad-Taste Beau
Mrs. Edwards
Cleaner Floors.
"Drugs and prostitution."
A Counting French Teacher
*COUGH CHOKE*
Cherries On Top
The So-Called Friend
im not gay!
It's for you
Boys...
Cafe Rage
Oh debatable.
Inspection day
Folger?! I hardly know her!
You're following one
How 'bout that stick in YOUR eye?
Out Of Focus
So THAT'S why the grass looks greener...
What I SHOULD have said for the "What I should have said..."
Super Happy Kitten Fun Time
The customer thinks they are always right ya know.
working birthday
a racist retort
Man Boobs
An Announcement at School
Hey dad!
Blow is just an expression
Cheap Thrills
Who's Looking?
Scientific truth
Give credit where it is due
Fairy Tale Ending...
Punch!
Gas station bastard
Luke I am original
Whats it to you?!
GHD = Good Hair Day?
Soundbites
Little White Lies
I'm Fogcutter Guy
unlikely peare
YOU ARE FREE
JOBLESS & DEPENDENT
Supertramp
Stop Shoulding On Yourself (props to Albert Ellis)
T-shirt?
Young enough to know enough
Kiosk Kaos
Checkout blues
Learned my lesson
Too Many Girlfriends
Gosh, no thanks
umm...
"Sorry, I thought you were 8"
Straight A's cuz I do Drugs...
Horns, Halos, and wives....... oh my!
Unanswerable questions
Foreign relations
Kung Fu fighting
at the coatroom
I'm pretty sure..
Causes Of Depression
If I was five...
Facial Hair
psh..i'm not a bear
Short Changed
Birthmark
Are you yelling at me?
Cat-fight
wigger hitting on me!
Happy to get out of there
Jealous of you?
size matters
what would happen if i did some stuff
Stupid Phone People..
Short boys give bad excuses
Stupid people..
Dinner at the Dumpster
Small town= stuck up people
Comparing Records
Taking a stand
Your boyfriend doesn't think so....
Hannibal and the...Girl Scout
hitler re-incarnate
Broken Window
damn you chavs!
Crazy woman at a gas station
Retards 'R' Us
Here's Your Sign
A strange trip to Amsterdam
Jerk Store
I wish I was Brazilian!!
The Venician Deaf
You can fix it.....
Cinema Crazy!!
10-4 Good Buddy
Average Idiot.
Bathroom etiquette
Oh yes I can...
YOU SUCK!
wow im a freshmen
One chance to use my high school learning...
Damn cops
You Gay?
Dumb Fat Girl
Police come back.
Stereotypes
Freudian Quip
on holding the punk right.
Marine Recruiter
Staples oh Snap!
What did YOU get?
Oh, drivers ed
Car trouble
If you do this, I will kill you
Return trip
Angel conquered
Jockeying for Position
Missed opportunities
I bet you do...
fun with fruit
you don't look 18 to me
Racist? Of course...
Style Denial
For $50, I can't get any condiments?
The little train that DID!
Save our children
Spousal Abuse
Welcome to Europe.....
Its not you...its your mom
Drugs? Yes please!
By myself?
Crack is Whack
No, you're talking about yourself...
Don't break the camera! D:
Ding-dong...."No, god here"
want a lick?
your mother...
Evil supermarket customers
Go On My Son
The Brandy Blues
Which side of the road?
The stomach is mightier than the...
How To Be Smooth Like Sandpaper
D'oh!
Gay-Mart
Dumb and Dumber called, they want their ending back.
It was your mom?
Speed fun... but stupid
Closer Inspection
Boy, oh boy was this one right...
Right place, right time, wrong reply
Airline Annoyance
No, Officer
The Overbearing Military Recruiter
I got this one right!
There is no "I" in team.
It's one or the other
An odor of alcohol
Yes, I come here often
The Big Switcharoo
Water balloon + soccer mom
God's Communications
If I had just had more gas....
If you slim down
Drinks, eh?
I'd love to
Live and learn
Why I Hate Clowns
NEVER be witty with a State Trooper
Stretched too thin
Study much?
Mama's Boy
When Tourette's Srikes
Omg..
Sacreligious
Spellbound Situation
Passe the Cough Medicine
Latin for...
The Long and Short of It
ET Phone Home
All Along the Watchtower
Tooth and Male
L'esprit d'escalier
The French call it l'esprit d'escalier, "the wit of the staircase," those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late, on the way out of the room-or even, to tell the truth, days later. It's happened to you: you've suddenly thought of just what would put your foe in his or her place, but past the time when the arrow could sting its victim. You've stewed in your own juice ever since, and the chance for singeing repartee is gone forever.
Or is it?
Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde may have had the rapier wit to tweak their tormentors on the spot, but for the rest of us, we offer the Internet's only L'esprit d'escalier web site!
