WISH I'D SAID THAT

“At a 25th anniversary of a Fortune 500 company, a division President went to the microphone and said,’On this special occasion, I feel it’s time to be honest with the Chairman of the Board. When I applied for this job 20 years ago, he asked me how much money I was making, and I told him $125 a week.  I guess now it won’t hurt to admit that at the time I was really only making $100 a week. After the laughter subsided, the Chairman of the Board responded, ‘I appreciate your confession, but actually I was prepared to offer you $150.”’ (Humor at Work, c.Blumenfeld and Alpern 1994)

Last week, I asked Mr. Google to pull up some rejoinders and come-backs on my computer. Most of them were sarcastic and hurtful. I guess that sometimes a person has to be put in his place, but generally when I feel the need to knock someone down, I prefer to offer him or her a humorous cushion. Albert Einstein did it well when he said, “There is a major difference between intelligence and stupidity. Intelligence has its limits.”

Years ago, my husband Warren was asked to fill out paperwork at the dentist’s office. The receptionist noticed that he had left one question blank, so she said, “What is your church preference?” Whereupon he replied, “Gothic.” Wish I had said that!

Elbert Hubbard said,”When life give you lemons make lemonade.” When someone says that to me, I usually respond, “That’s a good idea if you can find some sugar.” In the same vein, I can never understand that when one of your body parts is hurting, some fool will remind you that you are better off than the guy who lost his foot. It’s always the poor guy who lost his foot. That rejoinder will never make you feel better…Guilty, Yes!  Better, No!”

When viewing a painting by Toulouse-Lautrec a woman said to him, “Sir, (except in French) your painting is obscene!” And Toulouse-Lautrec responded, “Madame! The obscenity is in your mind, not on my canvas.”

So many times, all of us are confronted by someone who says something that calls for a come back, but we can’t think of it until much later when it’s no longer usable. However, as a playwright, I was offered the opportunity to use a rejoinder through the voice of a character in one of my plays.

A month after my husband died, a friend invited me to join her, on a hike in the mountains along with a woman I did not  know. Naturally, my feelings were still very raw. My friend mentioned to this woman that my husband had recently died, and this stranger said to me, “What did he die of?”—an arrow through my heart.  Five years later this very same exchange appeared in my play, “Here and There” (Detroit Repertory Theatre 2003). When the actor said, “What did he die of?” The reply was, “I shot him!”

Then there was my experience with the “over-under” guy. He was engaged to give a speech to a captive audience of unwilling listeners—including me. I tuned out what he was saying until he said, “You can tell a lot about people by how they put their toilet paper on their toilet paper dispensers. He  continued, “Forward hanging conveys a welcoming attitude. It’s an inviting gesture. Backward rolling shows an unfriendly posture.”

He then asked people to raise their hands if they rolled their toilet paper under.  I raised my hand.  Then he asked people to raise their hand if they were over rollers. Again, I raised my hand. He looked at me accusingly, and said, “You raised your hand twice!” “Yes, I did,” I replied.  “Well!” he said, “Why did you do that?” “Easy!” I replied.  “ I have two bathrooms.”

He found my reasoning uncanny.

Esther Blumenfeld