A Civil World. Off-topic discussions on a variety of topics. > Time For a Coffee Break!

Comebacks that Never Were

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NEDESAPIO:
Often on this Forum people say that they always think of the perfect, witty comeback for a rude comment hours after the fact.  In the past when someone has been rude to you, how do you wish you'd responded?

I'll give you my story.  Back when I was in college my aunt said, to my face, that my eyes "bug out."  Those are the very words she used.  Now, I do have big, dark, heavy-lidded eyes -- just like my mom, who was sitting right there with me when my aunt made this comment.  The only explanation I can think of for such a bizarre and rude remark was that my aunt meant it in a kind of "all in the family" vein.  But if that is so, then it was very ill-judged, since she is my father's sister, not my mother's, and her own eyes are of "normal" size.

At the time I just sat there shocked, but now, several years later, I know how I should have responded:

Aunt:  You know how your eyes bug out..

NEDESAPIO:  Oh, they do?...Well, I'm gratified to know I have at least one thing in common with the great Marty Feldman.  [a.k.a. "Igor" in YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN]

MadMadge43:
I actually thought of this before the situation and then chickened out using it. I was confronting the Chapter President of an Association of which I'm a board member (I used to be the Chapter President of this particular association in AZ). The woman was in her middle 50's and always treats me like a child.

So after I had a long talk with her about how unhappy I was with some of the things she was doing and how they were personally affecting me, we made up and were giving each other hugs. And then she finally said what I knew she was going to say sooner or later, "MadMadge you are such a nice girl", I pulled back from the hug and said, "Girl, I am almost 40, I am well past the girl stage". She looked shocked and then looked really hard at my face and said "I thought you were about 25", "no, I'm close to 40 and I don't appreciate not being treated as such".

What I had planned to say but didn't come out was "Don't confuse good genes, a strict skin care regimen and a bubbly personality with naivete, that's a mistake".

Edited to add Bubbly personality, forgot that was in the speech

IndianInlaw:
When I was pregnant, I was spoiled by four young hematologists.  Man, they were handsome and smart and I adored them.

Anyways, after I had my baby, the four of them came, all at once to visit me.

Unfortunately, I was too weak and tired to say "I haven't seen so much good looks and talent, since the last time I was alone in the hall of mirrors". 

I was thinking it at the time..I stole the quote from Henry Kissinger...or somebody.

Clara Bow:
At my Nana's funeral (!) my evil grand aunt who I had not seen since I was twelve looked at me and said "You used to be such a skinny kid, what happened?" Yes she did, four feet from the casket and ten minutes before the sermon. I smiled at her and walked outside to pry hubby off the wall (he was ready to strangle her).
In the car, on the way home I admitted that it had popped into my mind to say "You used to be so much younger, what happened?" My father still rags me for not having said it to her. I was trying to be respectful in light of the time and place but Daddy insists that Nana would have been in the afterlife applauding. No one likes evil grand aunt. Her kids nearly sank into the floor after that little gem.

MerryRaven:
On the phone at the library:

Do you have books?  No we are the spatula museum.  Come and see our Swinging Spatula's of the 70's exhibt.

Oh, are you there?  No I am on the moon.

Where is the book with the thing, you know, about the lay mist that was in New York?  (Translation: Person was trying to find the book Les Miserables by Victor Hugo)
And you are speaking what language?

And no, I have never, ever really said such snarky things.

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