Esprit d'Escalier
"The wit of the staircase," or what you should have said...
Ever found yourself pronouncing your comebacks to an irritatingly smug person (say, an honors high school instructor) 18 years after the fact?
Anyone?
Heh. No, me neither. Haw. I was just joshin', y'know?
[That old bitch. Sure would like to... But she was in her early 60's then. She may be dead. (A world without that old battleaxe? I can't comprehend it. And choose not to.)]
Labels: brooding, hidden subtexts, memories, self-mockery, stuff
posted by Matt G @ 3:28 AM
5 Comments:
I'll have a REALLY good comment for this post as soon as it scrolls off the screen...
Good one. Excellent, in fact. I've been is such a position dozens, probably hundreds of times, but never once knew there was an extremely apt phrase for it.
Not really, but I do think about what I SHOULD have said all the time.
I try not to let it get me down.
Actually, I'm quick with the pop-off, but the evil ones - the ones that would get me shot/fired/banned from civilization - usually only occur to me well after it's too late to deploy them effectively. Good thing, too. In that case, it may be the Mercy of the Staircase.
That's one of the things that make the internets grand. You can just post your wit a little later. . .
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