(This is for all of us who can only think of a snappy comeback minutes or hours later. My usual response is to roll my eyes - seriously!)
This afternoon, I was talking to my male coworker about the fact that my fourth anniversary is next Thursday. The condensed version of the conversation goes like this:
C: Wow. You’ve been married for four years, and you’re only 25? Well, my mom had two kids by the time she was 22.
Me: Well, he proposed seven weeks and five days after our first date, but we decided to wait a while and make sure we weren’t just crazy.
C: (eyes gettin huge) Wow! You must be able to take the chrome off a trailer hitch or something!
Me: Yes, but I do it with finesse. And it’s the finesse that counts.
He laughed, and I went on my merry way.
But I DID it! I actually thought of a snappy comeback and didn’t just roll my eyes at him. I’m so proud of myself.
I’d called our local radio station when they had a gardening show on to ask a question about crepe myrtles. I mentioned that I loved the colorful ones, like the pink and the reds, but I’d also seen a purple one.
The host and the call screener got on to discuss the scientific name of the purple crepe myrtle so they could tell me which one to ask for at the nurseries. They were going back and forth, arguing over the spelling, and I butted in and said…
That’s okay, I’ll just spell it p-u-r-p-l-e.
They got a huge laugh out of that, and I got a warm fuzzy from making them laugh.
I’m envious! Rarely can I think on my feet well enough to make a snappy comeback, and often it takes hours to days before one will pop into my consciousness.
In a real life situation, back in my younger days I worked for a small town radio station (AM) that began experimenting with call-in talk programming. In fact, we may have been among the first in our area to do so. We had a Rube Goldberg tape delay that allowed roughly five seconds between “live” and “air” and the other “host” and I alternated running the board and monitoring the calls for questionable content.
One day when I was on the board, we got a call on an innocent topic and the caller began telling this yarn about a pet pig of hers that had a racially insensitive name. It went right past me and onto the air. The boss came running into the control room to relieve me of that, and any further, control of the delay device.
He made the accurate comment, “You would never have been any use as a gunfighter.” Of course I had no comeback, just like I didn’t have the reflexes to be aware of the original boo-boo.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on you. Fool me three times,…
Yeah. I’m not sitting here thinking “Wow, what an awesome comeback!” (no offense) but rather, “I can’t think of any comeback that would be nasty enough for what that asshole said.”
Eh, for some of us with questionable type workplaces, it’s better to go with the flow. I work in a factory, in arguably the most macho-centric department, and one gets along better being able to flip back a comment like Avarie did than pointing out to the clueless just how rude they are. When in Rome, etc.
Can I petition for advice? I couldn’t think of a snappy comeback then and I can’t think of one now.
The situation: a bunch of friends and I are invited to dinner at the house of one friend’s parents. We meet the friend’s brother, from now on called “the Troll.” I was being a good girl helping set up while everyone else played video games. As we are all setting down to dinner,
Troll to me: Would you like something to drink?
Me: No, thanks. I have this pink thing here (indicating some sort of Sobe fruit smoothie drink I was working on)
Troll: Yes, I know, but would you like anything to drink?
Now, I’m used to crude boy talk, although this is especially bad, but I was utterly caught off guard. Everyone was very quite while I sat there perplexed for about 5 minutes. Eventually, my fiance realized that I wasn’t being purposefully obtuse and attempted to retort. I didn’t catch on until after dinner. And then the only thing I could think to do was hit the Troll. There’s a good chance that I’ll have to interact with this idiot in the future. So, dopers, help me think up some quips to keep on reserve in case he opens his foul mouth again since I can’t do it myself. Here’s some personal info on him: 25 + and unemployed, not in school, lives at home, very obese, bad skin, thinning hair and, from all reports, crudely attempts to hit on anything remotely female in a 20 foot radius.
As for the OP, not to stomp too harsly on your parade, but I don’t know if this counts as a snappy comeback. It seems more like a furthering of his joke. Now, that’s more than I can do and it’s better than just rolling your eyes because now you’re the cool crude one instead of him. But still. It didn’t have enough venom in it to really put him in his place, which is what he needed after a suggestion like that. It is progress, though. So congrats for that
It was at work, during our usual end-of-day briefing. The sergeant giving the briefing was telling us about all kinds of work and BS that was coming down from above. And there was lots of it. He then said “But I have some good news…”
Me: “You saved a bunch of money on your insurance by switching to Geico?”
I agree that the coworker had better have known you pretty well. Almost all of my classmates (I’m a high schooler) would know better than to say something like that to anyone else, short of picking a fight.
My personal victory involved yo’mama jokes. I’m a white Canadian, but I just have this love of such jokes, so some of my friends and I like to toss them back and forth.
So, one day, one such friend and I are talking about how he just got into varsity tennis. I mention that I ran cross country, but that was the only sport.
Friend: “See, I think of cross country as more of a hobby than a sport.”
Me, without even thinking: “See, I think of yo’mama as more…”
Well if Troll was English it would mean do you want anything alcoholic to drink, Sobe being non-alcoholic doesn’t count as a drink. Are you sure it was some sexual innuendo take on your saying you had this pink thing here?
If it were sexual innuendo then it was so pathetic as to require no comeback.
