2014-01-13

What I Shoulda Said Was...

My father never wants for a snappy come-back. In fact, he once lent me a book published by MAD Magazine, entitled "Snappy Answers To Stupid Questions." It's a great book for those of us so inclined, and my father is a master of such things.

One of the most supportive things he used to do when I was growing up was, when I would come home from school complaining about something bad someone had said to me, he'd start laughing. Pretty soon, we'd all be laughing, because he'd provide an endless list of, "You should have said..." and then he'd fill in the blank with the greatest, wittiest come-back ever. Boy, if only I had thought of that at the time! I would have said it. That would have shut 'em up!

We all occasionally end up in situations thinking - long after the fact - "What I shoulda said was...!" We imagine a hundred thousand glorious ways we could have put somebody in their place, had we only been seized with the force of such a rapier wit at the time.

When Steve Sailer posts and re-posts the same quotes over and over, months apart, with no new information other than what he imagines to be "a great come-back, man," I get to thinking of all the sad sacks I've ever met, who are found shaking their fists and muttering, "What I shoulda said was..."

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