Gobsmacked...and DAMN I wish I'd said something clever...

During my recent trip home, I saw several people I have managed to avoid since high school. One of those people is the now principal of my daughter's high school. This woman was my class sponsor, so from my freshman through senior year, she was our class organizer, home room teacher, etc. She knew me through my awkward years, back when I was beat up at least once a week, and when I was the ugly girl in the class, she even went to far as to help my classmates mean girl at me. She's not a nice person, and no love is really lost between us.

But, she's my daughter's principal, and my daughter was receiving awards at the brunch, so there we were.

Principal calls my name, and as I turn around, she's walking toward me...staring at my face. Hard. Like really really staring at my face, and my eyebrows, and my forehead. It was weird. Then she says, very conspiratorially, "So, was it the doctors...?" as she's eyeballing my mug.

My brain stuttered. I had NO idea what she was asking me, except maybe if I'd had plastic surgery...which, given that I was apparently a sea troll back in the day, would make sense, right? So I give a confused look and say "Sorry, what?"

"When you had your miscarriage, was it the doctors? Did they just not know what to do with you? Or was there something else...?"

You know those moments when things are happening to you and you're just so shocked they're actually happening that all you can do is stand there, wide eyed and kind of confused?

That was one of those moments.

In hindsight, I wish I'd been faster on my feet and said something super bitchy and snarky, but I didn't...I just said something along the lines of "Things happen, it is what it is" while she kept going on and on about how stress and me moving across the country and quitting my job was surely a part of things...

Focus: What's the most unbelievable, over the line comment someone's ever made to you?

Alt Focus: Whats the best comeback you've thrown at someone?

Or y'all think of a better focus because I've never thought of one before.

 

I still, other than simply calling her names and asking her if she's out of her goddamned mind, don't know what an appropriate response to that whole scenario would be. Probably because I'm too close to the situation.

 

"I wish I knew, so that I could get in my time machine, go back and visit your mom when she was pregnant with you and give her doctors the secret. Now kindly get out of my face."

Alt Focus: While not my best comeback, when I was in eighth grade, I was walking down the street with some girlfriends and a bunch of guys in a car drove past, rolled down their windows and hollered "HOW MUCH?" at us. Without batting an eyelash, I said "More than your mom." He looked mildly chagrined.

 

AHHHH somebody beat me to the Jerk Store!!!

But yeah, that's a total bitch move.

My wife had 2 miscarriages in 4 months before we had our son. She was a music teacher and missed about a week and a half of work recovering from the emotional damage. After quitting her job she was pregnant with our son and we run into the superintendent of that school and his wife who was the Spanish teacher. She notices my wife's pregnant belly and says "Don't you think it's time you stop trying already?"

Side note, the next sentence was filthy offensive and in an effort not to start a fight with anybody on this board I have put it in a spoiler so you don't have to be subjected to my horrible poor choices when somebody is downright stupid.

I replied with:

Spoiler

I'm no gynecologist, but I sure know a cunt when I see one.

And we walked off. In the few times we see them, we politely wave and smile without saying a word. It's from a punchline I heard a long time ago, I had never used it in real life until that moment. Probably won't ever do that again.

I'm sorry somebody was stupid to you. You're better off in life just shrugging it off.

 

Thats all? Thats all you said? I would have been blind with rage.

 

I was lucky even that came out. I was so shocked that some lady I had met maybe twice would be so forward about something that's none of her damn business. If I hadn't be saving that for years waiting for the right time to be so offensive, I would have walked off silently in shock.

 

I promise, in the moment, you're just stunned. Or at least I was. The Rage came afterward. In the moment, when someone says something like that to you about such an incredibly personal, traumatic, overwhelmingly awful event in your life...you're literally stunned, eyes and mouth wide open. Every person close to me who's heard this story has had that same initial reaction, followed by the rage. But in the moment? Just wow. Agape.

Hindsight?
"This isn't any of your fucking business." and leave it at that.

 

Say what you want about Carolla, but he's onto something about keeping a "Fuck off" on deck at all times. Most people are just completely shocked when what they say is immediately met with a curt Fuck off as you walk on by.

 

Carolyn Hax's stock advice for what to say in these circumstances is, "Wow."

This is good advice as well. I think it works because you don't have to think about what you're going to say if you've already programmed your brain to say it.

IF jackass says something awful
THEN execute "Fuck off"

 

My neighbor Dan in the dorms was the biggest shit talker I've ever met. Some of it tongue in cheek, but it was nonstop. All the damn time. My neighbor also happened to be a quadriplegic, so it made the comebacks exceptionally brutal.

"Hey Scotch, when I blow out my birthday candles, I'm gonna wish for a blow job from your girl"

"Dan, you better wish for some new legs this year because the pearly gates don't have a wheelchair ramp"




"Scotch, I busted all over your mom's face last night"

"Sorry to hear that, Dan. Want me to take you shopping for a new colostomy bag?"

 

Alt Focus I hated my old roommate in college with an unchallenged fervor. Add into that I was a smart ass I I kept pushing things until someone finally pushed back. At one point I decided to tell my roommmate, "Jeff, if you committed suicide no one would care", awful right? He responded, "I bet your wrong", I answered very quickly "Prove me wrong"...

Still kinda feel bad about that one.

 

I dumped my college girlfriend of 3 years cause I never really liked her. Anyways my college roommate told her how I cheated on her when we were together and shit. I know I was an ass but he breached the Bro Code. Anyways they got married and on their wedding day I posted the following on his wall:

"I forgive you for fucking me in the ass. Only because I fucked her in the ass first. Good luck making it last."

 

There's a specific phrase in both French and German for this very thing, and I can never remember what it is, so I might as well fish for it now that it's on topic.

Focus: In 2000 I went with a group of art students at my college to Egypt. After we got off the plane and got our luggage, some of us went to a bank to exchange some money. Well, this one professor (actually the head of the art dept.) cuts in line in front of me.

"Hey Rick, there's a line," I said.

"Don't test me, I'm a professor," he shot back.

Now, at this point I'm stunned by this - I'd heard this guy was an asshole but I'd never had any of his courses so it was all just second hand. Even if I'd had thought of something to say, one of our tour guides said something to me to the effect of:

"Aren't you a professor too? You're tall."

And then I heard Rick say, "Tall doesn't mean intelligent." Today, I would have gouged one of his eyes out, but when you're 20, in a foreign land for the first time and there are a few cops nearby with MP5s, getting into a fist fight with the head of your dept. isn't something you do - and I was too pissed off to think of anything witty, like "Neither does being head of the art dept., motherfucker!"

I did scratch a "P" in front of his name on his door name plate after we got back, for what it's worth.

 

<a class="postlink" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'esprit_de_l'escalier" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L'esprit_de_l'escalier</a>

 

When I was a kid, I was extremely weird (I'm still petty odd, but it's worse when you're a kid.) I went to a catholic school, so I was basically with the same group for 30 kids from preschool to 7th grade. In 7th grade, a group of girls were making fun of me for being weird and instead of telling people to stop, the teacher pulled me out into the hallway and told me "You know, if you acted more normal, people would like you better." At 13, I didn't know how to handle that situation, so I said nothing. I left that school at the end of that school year and most of the girls who made fun of me either got pregnant in high school or got arrested. (one girl got her ass kicked the first day of freshman year, had a baby when she was 15, and was later arrested for grand theft auto and corruption of a minor.)

I know it was 15 years ago, but that shit still gets to me.

 

One time my wife was mad (read: pregnant and hormonal) and told me I had a small dick.

I told her "You were a virgin when I met you, you have nothing for comparison." Then I looked at her suspiciously.

She stuttered for a bit, then finally said "I promise, I have never cheated on you."

Uh huh. And now someone knows her porno habits. Someone's watching some "Black Poles in White Holes" when I'm at work.

 

You're allowed to watch porn at work? Are they hiring?