The Comeback Kid … Sometimes
Jenna von Oy Bratcher is a professional writer and dispenser of sarcasm. Amateur chaos coordinator. You can find her on LinkedIn.
I don’t regret my college debauchery. I definitely don’t regret my divorce. But I do regret every witty comeback I’ve never made.
When it comes to some words and phrases, there’s no English equivalent that does them justice. There’s a Finnish word Kalsarikänni, that roughly translates to “pantsdrunk.” It’s the art of sipping cocktails in your underwear, with no greater ambition than devouring a donut and binge-watching “Law & Order” reruns. Here in America, we simply call that “the perfect weekend,” but I suppose Kalsarikänni has a nice ring to it.
And then there’s the German word Kummerspeck, which translates to “grief bacon.” This perfectly encapsulates the phenomenon of drowning your sorrows in comfort food, the inevitable consequence of heartbreak and a fully stocked fridge. One minute you’re single and sad; the next, you’re in a committed relationship with an entire tub of cookie dough.
But my personal favorite comes from the French, a term called L’esprit de l’escalier. It describes that perfect counter-remark that waltzes into your psyche long after you’ve lost the argument.
Denis Diderot first lamented this cruel joke of timing in his essay, Paradoxe sur le Comédien, written in the 1770s. He describes being tongue-tied by an opponent’s retort, later bemoaning, “The sensitive man, such as myself, entirely absorbed by what is objected to him, loses his mind and recovers it only at the bottom of the stairs.” Oh, Denis. Been there.
There is a cruel and universal truth to life: the ideal retaliation often arrives fashionably late. If my mind were a dinner party guest, it would show up just as the music fades, the wine runs out, and everyone heads for their Lyft ride. The French, who love a good existential dilemma, have given it a poetic name. We Americans, ever pragmatic, removed all sense of literary grace and reduced it to “staircase wit.” Creativity at its finest.
L’esprit de l’escalier is a special kind of torture; the world’s worst timing for a lightbulb moment. It’s the exquisite zinger you conjure up when you get home from the worst-ever blind date, or halfway through a shower, or drowning in a 3 a.m. fret session.
It’s a distorted, cerebral FOMO. A reverse mic-drop. Sometimes brilliance needs an incubation period.
Maybe this is why I write. On the page, I can tinker with words and tone, tweak, aggressively proofread, and even run everything through Grammarly to ensure my insults land with precision.
If only fifth-grade me had enjoyed the same luxury. Back then, my primary nemesis was a boy (we’ll call him Jeff the Joker) who teased me mercilessly. He was supremely tall and popular, and I was … well, me. He took great joy in reminding me I was roughly the size of a garden gnome. “Shorty,” “shrimp,” “half-pint.” He didn’t have range, but he had stamina.
Fed up, I complained to my dad, who reassured me Jeff was just jealous. “Of what?” I asked skeptically. Dad pivoted. But before changing the subject, he gifted me this little gem that promptly suctioned itself to my mental hard drive: “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius.”
I had no idea what it meant, but it sounded profound. So the next day, when Jeff struck again, “Hey, short-stack,” I fired back with all the venom of a pre-pubescent, angsty, right-brained ten-year-old: “Jealousy is the tribute mediocrity pays to genius!”
Yeah.
He blinked at me like a motel vacancy sign. And then he laughed. And laughed. And laughed some more.
Know your audience, kid.
I should’ve said something snappy and mildly ego-bruising. “Clever. Did you learn that one from watching Alf?” Or “How original. I’m sure Mensa awaits you with bated breath.” Anything, really. Instead, I bet my street cred on a Magic 8 ball.
And that’s not the worst one. Several weeks after I gave birth to my first daughter, I had an appointment with a new primary doctor. When the nurse called me from the reception area, she dutifully measured my height and weight before escorting me to an exam room. I set the baby carrier down next to me, my newborn nestled peacefully inside, and braced myself for the barrage of standard medical inquiries.
After a few minutes, the nurse rummaged through a drawer, gave something to me, and announced, “I’m obligated to tell you that you’re exceedingly overweight.” I looked down to see a brochure on obesity in my hand.
My brain short-circuited. I gestured vaguely at my daughter, mumbled something incoherent, and felt the meteor of brilliance miss its mark, crashing spectacularly into a nearby X-ray machine. I wish I’d said, “Wow. Exceedingly overweight? And here I was just shooting for moderately postpartum. Go, me!”
Moments like these have piled up over the years like unpaid parking tickets — times I could have (should have) been a legend but instead spiraled into a black hole of social anxiety.
In these moments, my body betrays me. The fight-or-flight response momentarily hijacks my higher-order thinking, and by the time I regain some mental footing, the conversation has moved on.
This is, undoubtedly, why I’m drawn to authors like Dorothy Parker and Oscar Wilde, whose scathing humor and razor-sharp wit are perpetually locked and loaded. It’s an art form reserved for scripted dialogue and cleverness. For funny people.
French Choreographer Yoann Bourgeois offers a physical representation of l’esprit de l’escalier in his mesmerizing staircase performance, where he appears to be caught in an endless cycle of falling and rising—it’s elegant. It’s hypnotic. It’s graceful in a way I’m not.
Existential philosophers might sigh knowingly and declare this an unavoidable aspect of the human condition. We’re given the freedom to act in the moment yet condemned to realize, in hindsight, how we could have done it better. The brain, capable of composing symphonies and decoding quantum mechanics, decides to take an impromptu coffee break when we need it most.
But maybe this is a blessing in disguise.
I am coming to terms with the possibility that sometimes, keeping my mouth shut is the real power move. By embracing l’esprit de l’escalier, I get to indulge in an imaginary victory that causes no collateral damage. It’s just little old me, basking in the glow of a flawlessly timed comeback that exists only in my mind. No awkward tension, no HR meetings, no real-world consequences. As the saying (often misattributed to Abraham Lincoln) goes, “Better to remain silent and be thought a fool than to open your mouth and remove all doubt.”
Maybe the best retort is the one that never leaves my lips. Maybe, in some cosmic twist, silence is its own kind of victory.
A few weeks ago, a tech-savvy coworker was helping me resolve a computer issue. After meticulously explaining the exhaustive steps I’d already taken and dramatically declaring that I was at my wit’s end, my Google Chat finally pinged with his response. At last, some expert guidance.
"Did you empty the trash?"
This was accompanied by a helpful screenshot that illustrated the location of said digital trash bin.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard as I stared into the abyss of snarky responses. Have I emptied the trash?! Do cows moo? Do millennials turn every life crisis into a meme? Does a Cybertruck look like a failed origami project? The clapbacks were lining up and readying themselves for launch.
But then, I did something radical. I didn’t type any of it. I let the moment slide into the oblivion without much fanfare. No sweaty palms, no sleepless nights, no regrets. And bonus, I probably salvaged my co-working relationship.
Checkmate.
This is the evolved me, leaning into subtlety and practicing restraint. No longer ruled by the need to land the perfect joke, outmaneuver condescension, or get the last word. I am zen. I am mature. I am floating through life in a state of level-headed bliss.
But the next time l’esprit de l’escalier hits, I’ll morph back into that insecure fifth grader, punch-drunk with regret and flailing in the aftermath like a crash-test dummy.
And maybe that's the point. Maybe these phantom comebacks are life's way of teaching us timing—not just in wit, but in wisdom. Though I guarantee, five minutes after publishing this, I’ll think of the perfect ending. Long live l’esprit de l’escalier.