What I Should Have Said...

You know the scenario: Someone smug and obnoxious or cruel and manipulative does or says something really awful to you and it hits you like a brick. Your chest gets tight, your face flushes hot, and you get a flash of white hot anger. And then you come up with the perfect comeback--a stunning blend of acid, wit, and payback. But you come up with it about three hours later when you are lying, staring at the ceiling, unable to sleep for thinking about the encounter for the thousandth time. Which of course does no good for you and your psyche and pride, but lets the perpetrator off the hook with your spluttering. Don’t you hate those moments? You’d think that having extensive training and education in communication (and a natural bent towards controversial behavior) would make me immune to drawing the short stick in one-up exchanges, but all the information in the world can’t save me from the temper rearing its ugly, incoherent head. So, I’m left to stew about what I should have said, and I’m always much more clever in hindsight. But sometimes you get it just right, say just the perfect thing, smooth over the conflict in just the right, clever way and you can live off the high of that for a good week. In Mercer Mayer’s Just A Daydream, Little Critter goes up against the school bully, and loses miserably, until he figures out just the right way to come out on top. Finally.

http://www.amazon.com/Just-Daydream-Look-Look-Mercer-Mayer/dp/0307119734

http://www.littlecritter.com/about_mercer_mayer.html