Like most people (I hope, anyway) I sometimes come up with a reasonably good retort several hours/days/weeks after it could have actually been of any use. I’m sure everyone will recognise the feeling it gives you; "…Hang on…I should have said that! That would have been great! Dammit! :smack: ". I seem to recall there’s a french name for it…le wit l’escalier? Something like that.
There are some people I know, however, who can think up magnificient retorts on the spot. Could anyone share some stories about a time in which you or a friend came up with a fantastic witty response? I await in jealousy at your ability.
Oh, as to the other part: My friend Ralph and I are in a constant friendly competition to see which one of us is funnier. I think I may edge him over time, but he’s definitely quicker. The only one I can think of right off the top of my head isn’t really a retort, but it was quick.
We were screwing around during a band elections meeting playing appleball (stickball with apples and brooms). Mary, the head manager, tried to get us to stop by taking the brooms, but when she wasn’t looking our friend Tom snagged one away from her. Immediately Ralph shouts out “Tom, don’t take Mary’s broom! How’s she going to get home?”
So, I’m at a convenience store with my two brothers. I’m what? maybe 15. They’re 19. One of them starts flirting with the girl behind the counter, being suave and asking her questions and such. He asks, “do you think I should buy this lotto card?” Presumably to get her opinion on which one might be better. Little me fires away with, “Why not? It’s the only way you’re getting lucky tonight.”
My other brother busts out. The girl behind the counter gets this look on her face, you know the one, where you totally want to bust a gut but you can’t because you’re trying to be polite for the customers? My brother turns red and flees. We follow, laughing our fool heads off.
I was hanging out with some friends after work, and we were having a few drinks. As happens when you mix a co-ed group of friends with drinks, we got to talking about sex.
I asked one guy how many women he’d slept with. It was noisy, so he repeated my question, I suppose, to make sure he’d heard me right. “How many women have I slept with?”
I get a little uninhibited with a glass of wine, and I immediately came back with, “Well, you can count the men and goats if you want to.”
My other co-workers fell of their chairs, screaming.
Our very traditional English teacher was talking in class about how the difficulty of AP tests have decreased over time, as younger generations spend more time playing video games and on the internet than reading. To which, I responded, “Yes, those kids…listening to their jazz and their rock and roll on their eight-track tapes”. I carefully pronounced each of the key words as though I were unfamiliar with those terms, I guess it was as much the delivery as the actual line. But it cracked the class up, including the teacher (who is, fortunately, very good-natured)
Many moons ago in Japan, I used to work with a Chinese-Australian guy whose surname was Chin. Not only he was putting on weight, but he also had an an identical twin brother. Said brother came to visit him, and I arrived at a party where both were present. Said I upon entrance {and I swear to God this just sprang out spontaneously}, “Ah. Double Chins.” He never forgave me, but damn it was worth it.
Last week I was at the supermarket checkout. The young son of the woman in front of me was standing behind me reading some kid’s magazine displayed at the checkout. As his mother finished paying for her groceries he squeezed past me and she said, “Nathan, where have you been?”
When I was at my current job about 6 months, I was standing in the hall talking with another cow-orker. Pompous Blowhard Guy wanders by, interrupts our conversation, and basically begins to tell us how keen he is.
At one point he made the mistake of starting “Well, when you’re a man of my stature…”
I immediately zinged back “I used to be. But I lost about 50 lbs.”
Pompous Blowhard Guy was a leetle tubby.
My cow-orker almost swallowed his tongue from trying not to laugh. And Pompous Blowhard Guy never forgave me… but it did shut him up. So it was all worth it.
About two weeks ago, in my Lawyering and Professional Responsibility class.
Taught by a South African Woman who has mastered everything but humor.
Our assignment had been for each individual in the class to represent the interests of a jockey in negotiations with a member of a different class representing a stable owner, and to try to get the best deal for the jockey that we could. So we’re in the recap meeting, and our Dutch-Vulcan professor is reading off various proposals that members of the class had made:
Professor (droningly): “Some of the items you negotiated for: percentage of purse, use of the training facility, first look at new racing opportunities, travel money, bonuses, stud fees…”
HSHP (shocked): “For the jockey?!?!?!”
Class: collective gasp, sounds of stifled laughter
**Professor ** (intensely disapprovingly): “For the HORSE, Mr. Pup. The horse.”
At one job a guy asked all of us something like “Do you like gorgonzola cheese?”, to which I replied “Yeah, but I prefer girls.”
Same guy, who was kinda weird, finished up a task rather efficiently, and said “Done. Damn, I’m good. Sometimes I scare myself!” Without missing a beat I muttered “You scare us too, Richard.”
When I was about 16, my two older brothers took me out to an industrial club for the evening. On the way home, my oldest brother jokingly said “Great music - if I’d wanted to hear something that repetitive, I would just turn on a fan.”
My other brother fired back, “Yeah, or listen to you talk for an hour.”
Maybe not the cleverest response, but I swear that my body said this before my conscious brain had a chance to get involved. Maybe it’s an example of the kind of bicameral mind activity Julian Jaynes used tlo write about:
I came into my high school English Lit class a bit late (with a legitimate excuse). The Teacher immediately shot a question at me without any explanation, preparation, or buildup:
Teacher: [CalMeacham], what’s a scholar?
Me (immediately): It’s something that goes around your sneck.
I don’t feel guilty. If he wanted a legit response he shouldn’t have ambushed me.
I’m told the Germans call it treppenwitz, which means the same thing but sounds scarier.
All we do at home is try to be witty. It’s a borderline addiction; sometimes my brothers have to start the same sentence three and four times before I let them finish without a sarcatic comment. But the comment that most impressed my brothers was among the worst things I’d ever said.
Some years ago, around Passover time, my mother was talking to a friend on the phone about what she was going to make for dinner when the rest of our family invaded. I guess she got caught up in talking about great meals from holidays past, and finally she said, “I’ve noticed that Jewish women cook well.”
“Didn’t Hitler say the same thing?” I replied. She laughed at it, but my middle brother was laughing so hard he almost had a stroke. I think he still calls that the funniest thing I’ve ever said.
It was in English class my senior year in high school. We were going over Dante’s Inferno and we were on, I believe the second layer of hell. I don’t know, I didn’t read it. Anywho, it’s the one with the sexual deviant people.
She says to the class, “Ok, let’s have some fun with this. They’re being wistful. They’re getting swept off their feet…”
Me, before I know what I’m doing, “They’re getting blown.”
My teacher had this surprised look on her face. I can garuntee though that she wasn’t more shocked than I was that I said that. After a few seconds, she went on as if nothing happened.
She was so hot. That has nothing to do with the story, just felt I had to share that.
