These people actually had a cool response in the heat of the moment, not two hours after the altercation like the rest of us!
All posts have been edited for clarity.
Former Marine
“There was a big burly former marine from Iraq who was back stateside working in my office. He was an absolute mountain of a man. We came to face with each other in one of the narrow corridors of the office where one of us was going to have to turn sideways. Neither of us turned, but we stopped. I’m six-foot-one but he still towered over me. He was a nice guy, but still a little ‘conditioned, I guess you could say, or mentally unhinged.
He looked me dead in the eye and asked, ‘You feeling froggy?’
It truly was like something out of a movie. Without blinking I replied, ‘You better jump.’
We both cracked up and turned sideways, while the office breathed a collective sigh of relief.”
Project Management Team
“At work, the project management team undercut and mismanaged a project so badly. They pushed getting the minimum viable product out with the goal to roll out improvements later.
The product was released, they all patted themselves on the back and moved on. Then their minimum viable product broke.
In a meeting, we talked with our directors about how it was so broken and the cost to fix it, etc.
They said no cost was too big, we had unlimited manpower, etc.
I asked, ‘How come we couldn’t afford to do it right, but we can afford to do it twice?'”
Dad Jokes
“I’ll never forget the moment a family walked into the local pub I was working at while I was working. This big king-of-the-grill bald alpha patriarch Dad type and his wife and kids came through.
I said, ‘Welcome, where would you like to sit?’
He snapped back, ‘Well, a table would be nice.’
Without missing a beat at all, I replied, ‘Actually we usually sit on the chairs here.’
I’ll never forget the satisfaction of that moment or the look on his face.”
Uncles
“My uncles were complaining about my dad so I walked into the conversation and told them it wasn’t polite to talk about people behind their backs. My uncle turned to me and said I shouldn’t interrupt when the men are speaking.
Completely out of character, I replied, ‘I don’t see any men in here.’
Boy, did I get a hard time that day but that’s how I knew I won the exchange.”
Flip Phone
“I worked in cellphone sales for a few years and a woman came in with a fairly new flip phone. This was 2018, we just still sold them. She was complaining because one of the sides of the screen was dangling off and said she didn’t do anything it just snapped and demanded a new phone.
I told her, ‘That looks like physical damage and we don’t have any coverage for that since you didn’t buy a phone protection warranty.’
She insisted it wasn’t physical damage and the phone just sucked and broke itself. She started freaking out and calling me all kinds of names and swinging her phone in my face and then the top half of the phone literally snapped off and landed on the counter in front of me.
I just looked her in the eyes and said, ‘Well that was definitely physical damage.’
She lost her marbles at my comment and it was weirdly satisfying.”
“Work Mode”
“I used to work in retail and a Karen once told me she hoped I die.
I was so into ‘work mode’ that I blankly responded, ‘I mean, we all die. That’s not much of a threat.’
Maybe it was my lack of intimidation or blank stare, but it really shut her up.”
End-Of-Year Evalutations
“I didn’t realize the nature of my comment when I wrote it but in high school, one of my teachers did end-of-the-year anonymous evaluations. Everyone hated him, and I understood why but I still did well in his class.
I wrote, ‘I don’t have any critiques about your teaching, but I think you should work on being a better person.'”
Sister’s Boyfriend
“When I was twelve, my older sister had a boy over for Thanksgiving dinner. She dated lots of pricks, but this guy took the cake. He was a big, brash, annoying moron who was rude to her and basically everyone.
As we sat down for dinner before we were about to say what we were thankful for, He said, ‘Huh looks like I’m seated at the head of the table, must be important,’ in an inaudible moron grunt with a huge grin.
Without pausing, I gestured to my dad seated opposite him and said, ‘Actually my dad is at the head of the table, you’re the butthole.’
My mom scolded me for swearing at the table but years later she told me she and my dad thought it was hilarious.”
Ex-Husband
“After four years in an abusive relationship and one year of an abusive marriage, I told my ex that I wanted a divorce. He told me that I couldn’t divorce him or I would go to the underworld.
My response was, ‘Well I guess I’ll see you there.’
I then kicked him out of my house, for which he had never paid a dime in bills, and told him to call his mom for a plane ticket.
Not the most shocking story here, but it felt good.”
Dentist
“I was around eighteen and getting my first filling at the dentist. They pumped me up with nitrous oxide for pain and to help me relax during the procedure.
The dentist came back and asked me, ‘How are you feeling?’
All I said was ‘I don’t,’ and he lost his mind and cracked up for what seemed like twenty minutes before he could pull himself together. I also started cracking up because of the laughing gas and his laugh was infectious.
So we were both just sitting in the room laughing and all his assistants came by and were very confused.”
Emergency Room
“I got super hammered when I was probably twenty-five, got in a bar fight, as was my habit, and got knocked out cold, also a bad habit back in those days.
I woke up in an emergency room to a cop who said, ‘It’s four o’clock in the morning, you’re in the emergency room, you have an extremely high BAC, so I have to take you to the detox center now.’
I stood up from the chair they had me in and the cop asked, ‘Hey, wait, are you okay to walk?’
I threw my arm around his shoulder and bellowed out, ‘Walk? I’m driving. Let’s go.’
He was not amused, and he got a little rough with me, but about half the emergency room staff completely lost it.”
Boss at Target
“I worked at Target back in college in a stocking job where we had to be there at like four o’clock in the morning to unload trucks. One morning, I overslept a bit and walked to the unpacking line about ten minutes late eating a breakfast bar. The boss stormed over and started loudly berating me in front of everyone for being late.
As he was going on, I was listening and taking bites of the bar without much expression, mainly because I was so beyond tired.
It finally bothered him that I was disrespectfully chewing during the yelling and he stopped mid-sentence, held out his hand, and said, ‘Give me that thing!’
It just happened that I only had one bite left so I took it, handed him the wrapper, and said, ‘Thanks,’ with a mouth full of food.
He paused and started laughing at the ridiculous response to his yelling. We were buddies after that.”
Border Patrol Agent
“I was young and traveling with a bunch of other guys. Border patrol stopped us and we were being searched for smuggling.
One of the more obnoxious Border Patrol Agents said, ‘You know I have the authority to cavity search you?’
Without skipping a beat, I responded, ‘Sure you might, but neither of us would enjoy it and you wouldn’t find anything.’
That got me off the hook without a cavity search.”
Sneery Friend
“I’m a writer and I do a bit of stand-up comedy. As such people tend to introduce me to new people as a comedian, writer, etc.
One night, I was outside a bar smoking with a friend of a friend, he then introduced me to one of his friends. His friend was dressed like Liam Gallagher from Oasis and seemed to exude a bit of a sneery manner.
The friend of a friend introduced me as a comedian.
Knock-off Liam Gallagher, looked me up and down, then said, ‘Comedian, eh? Does that mean you think you’re funny?’
I responded, ‘No, it means everyone else does.’
I literally do not know where it came from. I didn’t think about the response, it just came out.
And it is hands down the greatest thing I’ve ever said.”
Work Meeting
“At work at a company meeting, someone was presenting something cool they volunteered to work on and finished. They then explained things they thought they could do better in a self-deprecating way, and a bunch of other people started railing into his work with petty criticism.
It was definitely good work, though, and the thought just hit me so I blurted it out, ‘Sometimes done is the best feature.’
A bunch of people laughed and then the criticism stopped. People gave him kudos and we moved on. Not too sharp, but I was surprised this thought somehow came out fully formed, like it was some phrase I had been saying for decades.
I guess I was just realizing how many people don’t finish anything they start. So done suddenly seemed like a pretty good feature. I just wanted people to give the man credit for finishing it.”
PE Class
“Back in high school, I was the slow kid. For PE, we would run about a mile to the beach, have a swimming lesson, then jog back. I was always the last one back to the school grounds and the teacher would be standing at the gate.
One day, he told me I was too slow and he was going to lock the gate so I would have to jog to the next one about two hundred meters away.
I said I would consider him locking me out of school grounds to be a suspension and just go home.
He let me in straight away. I wish he had tried calling my bluff so I could have followed through and just gone home.”
Acting Class
“I was in an acting class in college, and we were doing a scene where a couple was having a big drawn-out fight. Multiple pairs went through the scene, and I studied it pretty hard, so I knew all the lines.
We were about halfway through our performance when my partner clearly forget what her line was. Because everyone was doing that scene, they could tell she had forgotten, as well.
Her next line was supposed to be, ‘Well, I’m sorry I asked!’
I’m not usually a quick thinker on my feet, but I just filled the second or two of awkward silence with, I bet you’re sorry you asked, huh,’ and continued on with my lines.
Not overly cool, but the class and professor loved it and all laughed. It was probably the only quick-witted thing I’ve ever done in my life.”
Intro Class
“There was this one extremely attractive girl in one of my intro classes in college. One day, for a project where we interviewed other students, I was partnered with her. We ended up not finishing our questions in class, so I asked her if I could meet her somewhere to finish interviewing her. She said yes.
Fast-forward to the next day, I met her after her dance group finishes rehearsal.
I knock through the last few questions, and the final one I asked was, ‘What do you perceive the future to hold?’
She replied, ‘I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner tonight, I have no idea what the future holds.’
So I said, ‘Well if you don’t know what you’re having for dinner, do you want to have dinner with me?’
She laughed, said yes, and though it didn’t last, I still look back on that day as one of the best dating stories I’ve had yet.”
Bookstore
1. “I used to work in a bookstore. I got asked a lot of dumb questions and usually had some good responses.
One customer asked, ‘Where is your non-fiction section?’
I asked, ‘What topic are you looking for? We have lots of non-fiction.”
They got frustrated and responded, ‘Just your regular non-fiction!’
I asked, ‘Biographies? History? Computers? Gardening?’
They repeated, ‘Just regular non-fiction!’
I responded, ‘See that sign over there that says Fiction? The entire rest of the store!’
I had amazing job security.”
2. “I worked at a book store and a customer asked me, ‘How often do the periodicals come out?’
I deadpanned ‘Periodically.’
He asked to speak to my manager. It was worth it.”
Waste Management
“I work in waste management and I’m also a rather small person.
I was wheeling a stack of drums out to our loading dock, navigating pretty much purely on instinct since I couldn’t see over or around them. Lo and behold, there was someone there chatting with the shipping people, and I ran straight into him.
I was surrounded by everyone in shipping, some fairly big dudes, and I felt amazingly embarrassed.
I leaned around the drums to look at the guy I hit, and without even thinking, said, ‘What do you want me to do, see through them?’
Everyone burst out laughing and the guy even opened the door to the dock for me. Every time I see him now he pretends to duck.”
“Some Sort Of Action Hero”
“At a party a few years back, someone stole my friend’s purse. Her boyfriend found the guys who took it and got it back for her, but he was still in an angry, hammered rage and was continuing to escalate the situation when he was well outnumbered.
My friend found me and said, ‘I’m afraid my boyfriend is about to get into a fight, I need your help. Stop him, please!’
I stood up and told her, ‘I can’t promise you I can stop him from fighting, but I can promise you I won’t let him lose,’ before walking off to find him.
Ultimately, no fight actually broke out, and I didn’t realize that I had basically said a cheesy one-liner until after the fact when my friend told me how intense the line was. I didn’t mean for it to sound so dramatic, I just wanted to let her know I wouldn’t let him get his rear-end kicked. I didn’t mean to make it sound like I was about to demolish three guys by myself like some sort of action hero.”
“Save The Planet”
“Years ago, I worked at a Hard Rock Cafe, and we often had pre-shift server meetings outdoors on a patio. One day, my boss was droning on about us selling more overpriced plastic cups and I was staring off at the spinning globe on top of the building that said, ‘Save the planet,’ on it.
I interrupted my boss by blurting out, ‘If Hard Rock is trying to save the planet, why do we waste so much paper?’
It was really directed at my managers, who had a hard-on for printing out stupid memos. They somehow didn’t realize it was about them specifically and passed the comment up the food chain, which ended up resulting in the entire company changing their payroll system to paperless, globally.
As a reward, I was given a pin shaped like a lightbulb that said, ‘bright idea,’ on it. Thanks, I guess.”
Birthdays
“At a family vacation, my grandmother was giving me grief for not remembering her birthday after telling me it was the password to her phone. She wanted me to take a picture with it, which is why I needed the password. I’ve never been good with birthdays.
While she was distracted, I opened up the settings, changed her password to my birthdate, and then set her phone down.
Fifteen minutes later, she was trying to get into her phone and it wasn’t working. Suspecting mischief, she grumpily asked me if I had changed the password to her phone in front of our entire family. I admitted that I did.
She asked impatiently, ‘Well, what is it?’
I responded, ‘It’s my birthday.’
She sat there in stunned silence for about fifteen seconds not being able to remember my birthday before our family exploded laughing. It was a good time.”
Office Hours
“This was back in my junior year of college. At the beginning of the semester, I was introducing myself to my very intimidating biochemistry professor. The guy was a genius but also a prick, students were all terrified to ask him questions because he was known for grilling people. If students hadn’t made enough effort beforehand he would send them out of his office to learn on their own when they asked for help. As I walked into his office he was sorting through some boxes and made a really sarcastic comment regarding stuffing me in the box and shipping it off somewhere.
He looked up for my response and I just blurted out without thinking, ‘I wouldn’t mind going somewhere nice.’
The dude laughed so hard it actually startled me a little. We got along pretty well for the remainder of the semester, so it all worked out really well. It’s amazing what a little laughter can do to ease tension.”
Air Max’s
“About twenty-five years ago, I was in ninth grade and my parents bought me a pair of Air Max’s.
I’m a female, but I had picked a pair of Air Max’s that were ‘supposed’ to be for males because I preferred the color of the shoes. I was super pumped to get those shoes because we didn’t have lots of money and it was a pretty extravagant purchase.
Anyway, I was at our local shopping center and I ran into a group of guys I went to high school with. They were a real bunch of pricks that thrived on dumping on other people.
One of the guys had on the same pair of shoes and said to me, ‘Do you know you’re wearing men’s shoes?’
To which I quickly replied, ‘Then why on Earth are you wearing them?’
The other guys almost urinated themselves laughing and it still stands out in my mind after all these years.”
Road Rage
“I had an older lady go into complete road rage. I pulled into a parallel space in front of a police station and she rear-ended ended me going thirty. But she wasn’t done. She backed out, drove up the street, turned around, and then smashed into me head-on, screeching the entire time. The officers came out in time to see her smash me a second time.
I got out all shaky-legged, wide-eyed, and scattered. A cop came and helped me get up the curb, while another was pulling the woman out of her vehicle. She was screaming about young people being bad drivers, screaming at me being a ‘disrespecting millennial.’
I replied, ‘Ma’am, I may be a millennial but at least I won’t be in jail for child endangerment you musty bag of skin.’
She didn’t realize my four-year-old was in the car. The cop busted up laughing as she was screeching about my foul language. I went in for the dirty word kill, calling her a slimy sock, a cobwebbed old bat, whatever I could think of. The cop admonished me but was still chuckling. I’m pretty sure the lady was purple she was so angry.
I went to her court date. She lost her license permanently due to her driving record, had to do eighty hours of anger management, one hundred and twenty hours of community service, and was credited for three days in jail. She was eight-four.”
Lawyer
“When I was a broke college student, a wealthy older lawyer hit my car. There was no damage to his but mine was crumpled, and I spent all of my money at the time keeping it on the road. I was going literally seven miles per hour in a parking lot and he was entirely at fault. We exchanged insurance information and I had to get a rental car until mine was fixed. He dodged the insurance calls for about two weeks, which forced me to pay out of pocket for the rental, about six hundred dollars which I definitely didn’t have. I knew the guy was a prick snooty lawyer.
My dad was a court attorney and while I had never used this flex, I finally had to ask my dad to call him and talk some lawyer at him. Fifteen minutes later I get a call and the insurance would go forward.
Fast forward like eight years, I was bartending at a swanky lounge where a Chamber of Commerce event was going on. It was just for local business people to rub elbows and network. This lawyer prick was really feeling himself and charming the room.
He ordered a drink from me then stopped and said, ‘Hey, miss, do I know you?’
So I came back loudly with, ‘Well not really but you hit my car in a parking lot a few years ago when I was a broke college student and stuck me with the bill. Do you wanna open a tab or closeout now?’
He did not open a tab.’
Not Ready For Commitment
“I was crazy about this dude. He was intelligent, hot, funny, and a bit older. After a few weeks of dating, he said he wasn’t ready for a commitment. I told him to come to pick up his book from my place, and not to reach out again as it hurt too much. I was that into him.
So he came to my apartment, I went to hand him the book, and began to shut the door.
He put his foot in the way to stop it and said, ‘I don’t know what to do. I’m not ready, but I can’t stop thinking about you.’
Moving my hand off the door, I handed him the book anyway and said, ‘Then pick me up at seven.’
Anyways now we’re married.”