This is my favorite Young Ones shut-up quote:
Neil: “Well it’s my birthday”
Mike: “Well you knew that anyway and we don’t care so where’s the surprise?”
In college there was a girl with whom I used to trade quips on a semi-regular basis. Around Halloween, I was standing in the hall talking with some friends and she came by and looked at me and said, “Isn’t it a bit early for the halloween mask?” (I wasn’t wearing a mask). I looked at her and said, “You know, I considered making a joke like that to you but realized how stupid it would be.”
OK skip the drawn out back story to the first one…
Girl at work. “Aw look your girlfriends here!” ( for the hundredth annoying frikkin time)
Me. “Shh! I thought we agreed we weren’t going to say anything 'til your divorce was through?”
20 or so customers. [silence]
A womens dart team at my local, were really pissing me and my mates off. It’s a pub so we are there to drink not throw sticks.
Woman(ish).“What’s up with you lot? Are you gay ?”
Me. “Not normally, but you just have that effect on men.”
Finally, one night very late, and very drunk, this girl next to me kept going on trying to get me to smile “Go on, it’s such a nice smile… Just a little for me…”.
Yup fine nice looking girl, but I was in a bad mood from work, I knew she was attatched (not to mention totally out of my league) and this went on for 2 fucking hours!.
Next night I go back in and the barmaid slaps me.
“What the fuck was that for?”
“I thought you were a nice lad before last night!”
“???”
“You said to that lass ‘look if I stick my cock in your mouth will you shut up for 5 minutes?’”
“Well? It worked didn’t it?”
Yup a crude yet totally successful put down (OK 50% successful), yet I was too pissed to remember.
I went to an all-boys parochial high school, and while it probably saved my life by separating me from the “let’s-throw-the-nerd-in-the-dumpster-and-torch-it” crowd, I was by no means popular. My nemesis was someone who, truth be told, never really did anything to earn my scorn, but got under my skin due to his particular brand of unrepentant and widely acclaimed obnoxiousness. It was one of those situations where if Cal and I made the exact same wisecrack, he would get laughs and pats on the back while I would get “who-the-fuck-died-and-made-YOU-God” stares.
So anyway, our American history teacher was trying to explain that one could not use the image of the hippie as a true representation of the 60s in America. Just as, he said, no one student summed up the image of our school.
Cal stood up. “Mr. Johnson,” he said, “I am the image of X High School.” His fan club clapped and hooted, and Mr. Johnson smiled indulgently.
Over in the corner, a voice piped up. It had already finished speaking before I realized that I was its source. “Well gee, no wonder all the public school kids think we’re a bunch of assholes.”
Yeah, I too shut up a lot of “your mom” cracks with the well-timed revelation that she’s been dead for quite a while. While I act upset, I’m always smiling on the inside though, watching them twist and squirm in discomfort.
JohnT:
Actually, he felt really bad about it. I let him know that I wasn’t upset.
But the look on his face was priceless.
Don’t talk with your mouth open.
and
Don’t look at me in that tone of voice.
I was at a dance in college and I approached an average looking girl who was sitting by herself. I asked her to dance and she just turned her nose up at me and turned her head. My response?
“Sweetheart, you aren’t pretty enough to be a bitch.”
“I do, but not with you.”
“Are you stoned or stupid?”
“I refuse to have a battle of wits with an unarmed man.”
“I’m sure you’re considered attractive on your home planet.”
Man in a bar: “Where are you from?”
Uninterested lady: “The future, just not yours.”
Apocryphal story: A woman had her daughter with her when she went to the bank. The little girl, about 4 or 5 years old, was very hyper and had apparently been that way all morning, judging from the woman’s frazzled look. After trying unsuccessfully to keep the girl from climbing up on things, messing with deposit slips, generally running around and causing problems, she grabbed her daughter by the arm and said, “Katie, if you don’t stop acting up right this minute, I’m going to take you out to the car and you’ll have to stay there until I’m done here.”
The little girl looked up at her with a defiant expression and said, “Mommy, if you don’t let me go right this minute, I’m going to tell Grandmama that I saw you kissing Daddy’s penis last night.”
Don’t know if this counts as a Shut Up Line, per say, but when I was in high school, this guy was talking trash to this other guy in class. Calling him a Band Fag, saying slanderous things about his girlfriend and mother, etc. He was feeling pretty secure in the knowledge that the guy wouldn’t do anything about it because A) He was in the marching band and B) one of the police officer/security guards (our high school’s security consisted of off-duty police officers and state troopers, in their regular uniforms) was hanging out in the classroom talking to the teacher.
Abruptly, in the middle of one of this fellow’s insults, he is suddenly stricken speechless by the band nerd’s fist connecting forcibly with his teeth, knocking him backwards out of his desk and onto the floor. He looks up at the police officer and teacher expectantly, only to find them both sitting on the floor laughing hysterically (along with the rest of the class), apparently having been observing the situation with growing interest. The cop made sure the fight was over, and declared the situation resolved to his satisfaction before wandering off.
If I didn’t have a financial or long-term sexual interest in you, I would have replied “yeah, but from here, Hell’s a local call.”
Good one!
“I’ve seen your approach, now show me your departure”
I’ve got a couple – one that I’ve used once and one that I regretfully have to use once a year or so.
A friend of mine and I were eating lunch in a fast-food place, and he was telling me about an idea for a fiction book that he had. He was going into excrutiating detail, and sadly, it was something about which I wasn’t interested at all. Simply to be polite, I kept saying “Um-hmm” during the infrequent times that he stopped talking. He finally stopped the recounting of the book he hadn’t written and said, “You keep saying 'Um-hmm.”
Says an exasperated I: “How would *you * suggest that I feign interest?”
After a brief period of silence, the topic of conversation changed.
The one that I find cause to occasionally whip out stems from my real-life name: it’s something that a third-grader would make fun of in a specific way. It’s not mean, but it sure did get old while growing up. So, when I hear the specific phrase regarding my name from an adult now, I simply chuckle and say “Yeah, I remember third grade.” Silence ensues.
I was in an Algebra course, I believe my sophomore or junior year of High School, and I had just made some nutball remark or off-topic joke that escapes me at this moment in time. The class was having a merry moment at the expense of my comment, but the laughter turned to tittering which grew to silence as they all noticed my teacher staring at me with a stone cold look of dismay and apathy on his face (one of your basic teacher expressions). Clearly he did not take too kindly to my comedic intermission interrupting his class. (At this moment in time I will interject my story to point out that my Algebra teacher was a huge man that had the body type of an ogre, was one of the football coaches, and could no doubt do a Michael Flatley impersonation on my cheekbone were he so inclined.) After about 10 seconds of awkward silence our showdown was ended when he said very disapprovingly and methodically as if he were talking to the town drunkard, “Were you dropped on your head as a baby?” Ordinarily that in and of itself would be a humorous “shut up” line, and it should have rightfully made me clam up. However, this time his insult barely had time to land true before I heard the following words pass my lips, “No, were you dropped on your face?” :eek: I was in for it now. I didn’t even mean to say that, there was no thought process behind my riposte; I had spoken purely out of my smart-alec reflex. I realized that the earlier pause in laughter sounded like Grand Central Station in comparison to the tomb like pall that now enveloped the room. In a sick, ironic twist, I began to regret slamming the door on that life-insurance salesman only days earlier. Though I had my doubts on whether suicide-by-jackassery was indeed covered in their plan, I realized I had more pressing matters to attend to. Could I escape through a ceiling panel from my gigantic geometrical guru? Would a desk to the head stun my petrifying Pythagorean professor long enough to call for help? Would curling up in the fetal position in a corner while simultaneously wetting myself invoke enough pity in my Sasquatch shaped sage so as to convince him to spare my life? While all of these thoughts raced through my mind, the rest of the class dared not even move save a few that began to cover themselves with book bags in expectation of the upcoming Gallagher simulation that would substitute my head in place of the watermelon.
I glanced at my teacher, who stood there slowly turning a reddish-purple normally reserved for the deepest depths of Inferno. Veins began to pop out of the veins already protruding from his neck. His glasses started to steam from what I was sure was concentrated smackdown escaping from his tear ducts. I began to formulate an apology, a plea of insanity, anything that I could think of to deflect the pain that was no doubt about to ensue. (Pain and I have a strained relationship in that I flat out don’t like it.) My thoughts were shattered when I heard a big booming laughter that rattled the room. I looked up thinking that he had snapped and had now turned into the Mr. Hyde of the math world. Game over. The fat lady is singing. That’s all she wrote. Dead man walking. A bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. But it wasn’t maniacal serial killer laughter, it was a good willed guffawing and he had a huge smile plastered on his face. He had been holding in his laughter and it finally broke like one of Thomas Jefferson’s condoms. Once he started laughing the whole class was gone and they began cracking up. For a good 3-5 minutes there was absolutely no chance of any work being done. It probably sounded like a loony bin in there to anyone passing by in the hallway. I sat at my seat utterly shocked, and looking very much like a deer caught in headlights. I couldn’t believe my good fortune. I had stared into the abyss and had won. I had fended off an insult, poked fun at a very large and very scary man (my teacher no less) in front of his own class, and had done so with nary a broken bone or missing limb in sight. While everyone was laughing he kept opening and closing his mouth (akin to a fish) as if he wanted to attempt a parry of my retort. Despite his best efforts nothing could come out of his mouth, not even audible laughter at this point. Feeling very high coming of such a victory I pressed my luck forward by cupping my hand to my ear and asking him, “I’m sorry what was that? Eh? Speak up I can’t hear ya. Let me know when you think of a better comeback then that.” Despite his good humor he shot me a look over his smile that very clearly conveyed to me that despite his lack of a “shut up” line, I had best shut up. And shut up I did.
I’m damn grateful that man was such a good sport, and besides he did open himself up by making the first move. I had seen him get angry prior to that incident, and judging from those experiences, things could have gotten real ugly that day.
On Preview: Wow, I cannot believe I just wrote all that. I started the post with the intent of only detailing my line, but all of that just flowed onto the screen. I didn’t mean to write a short story, but I am going to post this anyways (it’s typed, I might as well). If anyone even bothers to read my post, I apologize if it invokes boredom or sleepiness.
An old college friend had this response to someone saying “Fuck you” (typically obnoxious drunk in a bar):
“Nah. You’d fall in love and I’d fall asleep”.
From “Surely You’re Joking Mr. Feynman”, Richard Feynman met a obnoxious rich guy who was trying to impress him with tales of how much money he had wasted, Feynman’s response was “Is that supposed to be smart or stupid?”
Boredom? Sleepiness? Amigo, your narrative is a tour de force. Bravo.
When I used to work retail as a manager there were always the practical jokers who thought they were funny using really old jokes.
One of the old ones was to use the store phone and dial 99 for the overhead paging, put the phone down on the counter, then tell your co-worker they had a phone call. They’d pick up the phone “hello? hello??” and everyone in the store would hear them over the store speakers. (yeah, real funny).
One morning before the store opened but still had a couple dozen employees milling about my co-manager (Jim Trent) decided to try this on me. He tells me I have a call, I pick it up and “hello? hello?” nobody there. I hear laughs coming from throughout the store. So I continued over the phone so everyone could hear “Is that you Mrs. Trent? I told you not to call me here anymore. I’m just not that into you. Now please stop harassing me.” and hung up.
Jim never tried that one on me again.
I’m not a tall man, but average height. There was a co-worker one time, female, that was about an inch taller than I. She almost constantly called me “shorty” and would tell people “you need to talk to the short guy over there.” One day I had enough and when she called me short once again, I told her “You’re only calling me that because I’ve got clothes on.” She turned beet red and all our co-workers laughed long and well, and she never called me shorty again.