Go to What I SHOULD Have Said... main page
Here is one story retold,
albeit with a pithier ending:
From Vreda:
No, you're talking about yourself...
What happened: Alright, so I'm going to a friend's New Years party, the whole youth group is going, and I'm somewhat excited (I don't like large groups, but I like the people in the youth group, and my boyfriend is going) so I get ALL sortsa cute! I have this new brown skirt that's really cute, and pretty long, and this shirt with like... horizontal stripes that are maybe two inches thick and are colored cream, torquoise, and the same brown as my skirt (which I was excited about) and it has a nice cut, flare a little bit near the bottom, and the sleeves were long and threequarters of the way down it ended it's sweaterness and became a loose kinda crochet thing with the same color/stripe them, and the ends of the sleeves flared too. It was smashing, since I'm rarely all cute, and I was excited to look so cute!
So anyway, I'm there, a friend remarks on my cuteness, and then we play a game. Taboo. You know, there's a word, and you have to hint what it is without using certain words? Anyway, my word was luck. Since a good friend was there, I looked at her adn said, "I have none of this!" and she looked puzzled, and this girl, the friend of my friend's boyfriend, says, "Fashion sense." and everyone laughs at me.
What I said: I blush miserably, and say, "No," and go on to explain my word more aptly.
What I SHOULD have said: "No, not what YOU don't have, anyway..."
L'esprit d'escalier
The French call it l'esprit d'escalier, "the wit of the staircase," those biting ripostes that are thought of just seconds too late, on the way out of the room-or even, to tell the truth, days later. It's happened to you: you've suddenly thought of just what would put your foe in his or her place, but past the time when the arrow could sting its victim. You've stewed in your own juice ever since, and the chance for singeing repartee is gone forever.
Or is it?
Dorothy Parker or Oscar Wilde may have had the rapier wit to tweak their tormentors on the spot, but for the rest of us, we offer the Internet's only L'esprit d'escalier web site!
