The French have a brilliant term that I wish had an equivalent in English: l'esprit d'escalier. Literally, it translates as the spirit of the staircase, but it means the witty comebacks you come up with after the fact, like when you've already walked away from the encounter. I'm nearly never witty under duress, probably because my temper short-circuits my higher intellect...which explains a lot of the trouble/arguments I've had.
I was at the grocery store the other day and there was a man scrutinizing something he'd pulled out of the freezer. "They tell you your vision starts to go when you get older," he said to me, holding the box at arm's length and squinting at it. I laughed and offered to help him read it. He declined, and as I passed, he muttered that he was just trying to see the ingredients, that he was going to have to remember to bring his glasses with him. "Yeah," I said, "my dad has that same problem."
As soon as I said it, I realized what an undercutting remark it was. I think I was trying to relate or something, but my comment was more the equivalent of, "Yeah, you're old enough to be my father. No wonder you can't see for shit." Oops. But there's really no recovery from that kind of remark, is there? I could back-pedal all I wanted, but it'd just be acknowledging the undertone, accidental though it may have been. Instead I just kept walking, and spent the rest of my shopping trip being anxious we'd cross paths again in another aisle, because my tendency is to get over-anxious about things I could've said better.
I got invited to a former college roommate's engagement party by the maid of honor, who knew that I happened to be in town for another event. When another friend asked to see the ring and the bride-to-be held out her hand, with her fiance looking on, my exclamation was, "Oh my god it's so CUTE!" Dude bought her a diamond ring while he was laid off from his job and I'm all, oh, look how little and inconsequential it is! *facepalm* Fortunately for me, there has been no lasting ill effects -- I was still invited to the wedding -- but I cringe every time I think of it.
Last weekend, I took Dog to the P-A-R-K by myself. Usually Husband and I go together, but he was busy with school and Dog needed to get out...and so did I, probably. I took the opportunity to call up a friend of mine who's in the midst of a move, because I knew she happened to be driving and had time to talk (for the record, using a cell phone while driving is legal there, and she was in Buttsfuckville, Egypt where there is no traffic). We chatted as Dog and I walked through the park. It was a normal-volume conversation and I was watching my sailor tongue because I think swearing in mixed company is tacky. It's a giant dog park, with upwards of 200 people and their dogs perusing it on the weekends. We passed this late-middle-aged woman and her two dogs, who were meandering slowly down the path, and she said something to me in passing but I didn't catch it.
"I'm sorry?" I asked, covering the phone with one hand.
"A wilderness walk, and you talking," she said.
I put on a big, toothy smile. "You're kind of a bitch, aren't you?" I asked, and kept walking.
Okay, so that was an example of the tackiness of cursing in public, yes. But what the fuck was she thinking? This is a dog park with paved paths, adjacent to an interstate freeway, in the middle of a city of over a hundred thousand people, and being visited simultaneously by hundreds of people, most of whom are talking. The fact that I'm talking to my phone is no different -- in fact, there's only one half of the conversation for her to overhear, which is arguably less disruptive to her alleged nature masturbation -- I mean, meditation. Listen, lady, if you want a wilderness walk, you're in the wrong place. And while my comment was rude, yours was doubly rude: first you interrupted a conversation I was politely having, and then made a snide comment that was totally out of line. So go fuck yourself.
I drive my poor Husband nuts with a passive-aggressive tendency that migrated with me out of the midwest: I talk openly about people's violations of social norms and basic consideration...in front of them. Those people who walk into Target, grab a shopping cart, and stop short in the middle of the entryway to dig their shopping lists out of their cluttered purses? Yeah. When we walk past them, I comment to him about how I certainly try to move out of the way of traffic. It's only directed at the people who are so self-absorbed that they don't care they might be negatively affecting others -- if you dropped your keys, for example, and bent to pick them up, I'd just wait patiently for the retrieval and not say a word. But you can park your ass to one side or the other of the entryway to look for your shopping list. It's not my fault your handbag is a disaster.
Yes, I know this trash-talking is going to get me into trouble. It's happened before. I'm a little surprised that the fistfights I've been in have not been initiated by my smart mouth (but rather by the smart mouths of my friends, whom I feel obligated to back up). And I'm not bragging about being in fistfights, okay? I'm just pointing out that I'm aware there can be consequences to my acid tongue.
"Nah, you're not getting older. Clearly, your arms are just getting shorter."
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