June 22, 2021 | Eul Basa

Sick Burn: These Instant Comebacks Are Scalding


When someone wrongs us, we can choose to get vengeance with a meticulous, long-term plan—but sometimes payback is instant. In the heat of the moment, we come up with the most scathing reply that has the power to immediately shut up a bad boss, rude customer, or nasty friend. Revenge might be best served cold, but these piping hot comebacks say otherwise.


1. Schooling the Teacher

I’m a fourth-grade teacher, and one day I was up at the board struggling to remember how to spell a particular word—hey, it happens. I was trying to make light of it, telling the kids that sometimes adults need help with spelling, too. One student replied, “It’s because you were poorly educated. But don’t worry, we’re poorly educated, too.” Double whammy.

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2. Brother in Arms

At a party a few years back, someone took my friend’s purse. Her boyfriend found the guys who took it and got it back for her, but the boyfriend was still in a rage about it and was continuing to escalate the situation. My friend finds me and says, “I’m afraid he’s about to get into a fight, I need your help. Stop him, please!”

I stand up and I tell 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. I didn’t realize that I had basically said a cheesy one-liner until after the fact, when my friend told me how intense that line was. Ultimately, though, no fight ever happened!

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3. Single and Unable to Mingle

I was a waitress, and this group had one too many to drink. This one guy was incessantly hitting on me, so I politely told him I had a boyfriend, and then he started to ask me rude things about my boyfriend. Things like, "Does he pay for dinner? Does he take care of you?" Just sorry attempts to diminish him in front of me.

After a few minutes of me ignoring him, he then asked about the size of my boyfriend’s package. That’s when I really lost my cool. “What's the matter with you?” I snapped, “Why are you so obsessed with my boyfriend? I already told you he's taken. " His friends started to roast the dude badly, but frankly he deserved it.

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4. Go Ahead and Jump

My co-worker was this big, burly mountain of a man who was a little unhinged. While at work one day, we came to face each other in one of the narrow corridors of the office, and one of us needed to turn sideways to get by. Neither of us turned, but we stopped. I'm six feet and over 200 pounds, but he still towered over me.

He looked me right in the eye and said, "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.

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5. Peer Evaluation

In high school, one of my teachers did end-of-the-year anonymous evaluations. Everyone hated him, including me, even though I actually did well in the class. He was just really grumpy and mean. So without really thinking, I wrote something incredibly cruel. “I don’t have any critiques about your teaching, but I think you should work on being a better person.” That one must have hurt.

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6. There’s No “I” in “Team

At my work one year, our project management team undercut and mismanaged a project so badly. All they cared about was getting the minimum viable product out, with the goal to roll out improvements later. So the product got released, and they all patted themselves on the back and moved on. Then that product broke, big time.

So we’re all in a meeting talking about how it’s so broken, how much it costs to fix it, all that. While there, I asked, “How come we couldn’t afford to do it right, but we can afford to do it twice?"

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7. Why Don’t You Call Someone Who Cares

I worked in cell phone sales for a few years, and a woman once came in with a fairly new flip phone. She was complaining because one of the sides of the screen was dangling off. She claimed she hadn’t done anything to it and that it had just snapped all on its own volition. She was angrily demanding a new phone.

I told her, "That looks like physical damage and we don't have any coverage for that.” She continued to insist that 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…until 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 mind at my comment and it was weirdly satisfying.

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8. Making Headway

When I was 12, my older sister had a boy over for Thanksgiving dinner. She dated lots of jerks, but this guy took the cake. He was a big, brash, annoying idiot who was rude to her and basically everyone else. As we sat down to dinner, he says in this stupid voice, “Huh, looks like I’m seated at the head of the table, must be important” with a huge grin.

Without pausing, I gesture to my dad seated at the other side of the table and said, “Actually my dad is at the head of the table, you’re just the butt hole.” I got in trouble in the moment, but years later my mom confessed that she and dad thought it was hilarious.

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9. It’s Getting Hot in Here

After five years in a horrific relationship, I told my ex-husband that I wanted a divorce. He was very Christian, and he told me that I couldn’t divorce him or I’d go to hell. My response was "Well, I guess I'll see you there!” I then kicked him out of my house and told him to call his mom for a plane ticket. It felt so good.

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10. They Don’t Call It Laughing Gas for Nothing

I was around 17 or 18 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. Then the dentist came back and asked me, "How are you feeling?" Apparently, all I said was "I don't." He lost his mind and cracked up for what seemed like 20 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 together, and all his assistants came by and were very confused.

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11. Don’t Fear the Reaper

One day while I was working in retail, an angry Karen who couldn’t get her discount once told me she hoped I would die. I was so into "work mode" that I blankly responded without thinking, "I mean, we all have to go sometime . That's not much of a threat." Maybe it was my lack of intimidation or blank stare, but that really shut her up.

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12. Food for Thought

I worked at Target back in college in a stocking job where we had to be there at like 4-5am to unload trucks. One morning, I overslept a bit and walked to the unpacking line about 10 minutes late while eating a breakfast bar. My 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 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 darn thing!” That’s when I had an ingenious idea.

It just so 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 complaining. We were buddies after that.

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13. The Funny Thing Is…

I’m a writer, and I do a bit of stand-up comedy. As a result, friends tend to introduce me to new people as a “comedian” or “writer” or something of that nature.  So I was outside a bar with a friend of a friend, and he then introduced me to one of his friends. This guy was just dressed like a jerk, you know? And he exuded smugness.

The introduction went like this: My friend: “This is my pal, he’s a comedian.” The guy looks me up and down, “Comedian eh? Does that mean you think you’re funny?” Almost instantly, 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.

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14. I’m Done With This

One day while I was 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 for some reason a bunch of other people took that as an invitation to start railing into his work with petty criticism.

It was definitely good work, though, and a 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.

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15. He Shoots, He Scores

There was this one extremely attractive girl in my communications class 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. To my excitement, she said yes.

Fast-forward to the next day, and I meet her after her dance group finishes rehearsal. I knock through the last few questions, and the final one I ask is: “What do you perceive the future to hold?” She replies, “I don’t even know what I’m having for dinner tonight, I have no idea what the future holds.” So I come up with an amazing response on the spot.

I say “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 we only hooked up that night, I still look back on that day as one of the best dating stories I’ve had yet.

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16. Barrel of Laughs

I work in waste management, and I’m also a rather small person. One day, 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’s someone there chatting with the shipping people, and I run straight into him.

I’m surrounded by everyone in shipping, some fairly big dudes, and I feel amazingly embarrassed. I leaned around the drums to look at the guy I hit, and without even thinking, I 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.

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17. Too Cool for School

My girlfriend and I were in the middle of a discussion about her going back to school. She kept putting it off every semester, and one day she got angry at me for trying to get her to actually go back, not just talk about it. She yelled “Rome wasn’t built in a day!” and I responded, “Yeah, but it was built.” And a decade later, I still think of that.

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18. They Didn’t Get the Memo

Years ago, I worked at a Hard Rock café as a waiter, and we often had pre-shift server meetings outdoors on a patio. One day while my boss was droning on about us selling more overpriced plastic cups, I was staring off at the spinning globe on top of the building that says "Save the Planet." Suddenly, I interrupted my boss by blurting out, "If Hard Rock is trying to save the planet, why do we waste so much paper?" This was really directed at my managers, who were obsessed with printing out stupid memos they didn’t need. But I never could have predicted where it would end up.

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 light bulb that said "bright idea" on it. Uh, thanks guys, I guess.

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19. It Runs in the Family

At a family vacation, my grandmother was giving me grief for not remembering the date of her birthday—I’ve never been very good with birthdays. She wanted me to unlock her phone and told me her birthday was the passcode, but I couldn’t for the life of me remember it. So while she was distracted, I opened up the settings, changed her password to my birth date, and then set her phone down.

Cue 15 minutes later, she's trying to get into her phone and it's not working. Suspecting mischief, she grumpily asks me if I've changed the password to her phone in front of our entire family. I admit that I did. "Well, what is it?" She asked impatiently. "It's my birth date." She sat there in stunned silence for about 15 seconds, not being able to remember my birthday, before our family exploded laughing. It was a good time.

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20. Zero to Hero

A long time ago, I was walking down a side street in a medium-sized town with my girlfriend. A car was parked ahead, with the front of the car facing us as we approached. I could see two kids, maybe in their late teens, and instantly could tell they were likely going to say something as my girlfriend was rather attractive. You just get to know the type.

As soon as we come up next to them, I hear “Hey baby, ditch the zero and come hang with the hero.” I could feel my blood boil, but I kept my cool and calmly said, “Sorry buddy, I’m not gay...and don’t call my girlfriend a zero.” The dude’s friend started laughing at him and my girlfriend made a sarcastic crying face, then we both started to laugh.

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21. A Taste of His Own Medicine

I was doing a university project and had to do a large presentation in front of maybe 50-60 other students about a possible education toy for kids. It was a bit of a train wreck, as no one else in the group had rehearsed or even read the script. As with all presentations, they asked for questions at the end, and I stepped up to answer them.

There was one guy at the back who always asked awkward questions, like “What if someone were to injure themselves and sue you?" or "Have you factored in matching employees’ pensions?” It was meant to be a fun project for first-year students, and the professors weren't expecting tons of detail. So when he raised his hand, I knew I was in for it.

The guy opened right away asking awkward questions—but I was ready for him. He misjudged how well I knew my details. I asked the lecturer hosting the session if I could load up my spreadsheet, and he allowed it. That's when the guy realized he had asked the wrong guy. I had made an automatic spreadsheet that answered basically everything he could have asked. But I wasn’t done yet.

When it came to asking his group questions, I asked him every single thing he had thrown out to other groups, everything he had overlooked, just everything I could think of. On the way out, the other groups gave me a smile and a thumbs up.

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22. Do What You Love

Around the time I was 12, I was at a family party with my dad and aunts and uncles. My dad told me that one of my uncles owned several bars. My response? "Oh, it's good that he got into a business that he already knows something about." I had no idea what I really was saying, I honestly thought I was giving him a compliment.

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23. The Comeback Kid

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 quite demanding, and the students were all terrified to ask him questions because he was known for grilling people and even excusing them from class if it didn’t seem like they’d done enough work.

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..." Dude laughed so hard it actually startled me a little.

We got along pretty well for the remainder of the semester. It's amazing what a little laughter can do to ease tension.

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24. Don’t Mess With Me

This was kind of a proud moment for me. I was always really shy in school, had very few friends, was teased a lot. My mom passed when I was 14 and I kept it to myself, not wanting sympathy or more teasing for it. Except someone found out, though I’m not sure how. This awful girl then said in one of our mutual classes that I should just die like my stupid mom did.

The whole class heard and was shocked. Even the teacher was like a deer in headlights. I immediately got up to leave. Before I did, I gave a reply that made her face turn white. I turned to her, got up close, and said “I’ve seen what cancer does to people. It hurts. And I would never wish that on anyone. Not even you.” Then I turned and walked out.

A lot of people gave me some respect for the fact that I stood up for myself, although people then knew my mom had passed, which wasn't great. I ended up leaving the school a few months later anyways, but I was glad that I stood up for myself.

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25. If the Shoe Fits

About 25 years ago, I was in grade nine and my parents bought me a pair of Air Max shoes. I’m a female, but I had picked a pair of Air Max that were “supposed” to be for boys because I preferred the color of the shoes. I was super pumped to get those shoes; we didn’t have lots of money and it was a pretty extravagant purchase.

Anyway, I was at our local shopping mall and I ran into a group of guys I went to high school with. They were a real bunch of jerks who 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 the heck are you wearing them?”

The other guys burst out laughing, and it still stands out in my mind after all these years.

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26. With Friends Like These, Who Needs Enemies?

A couple of months ago, my now ex-friend was telling me all the things that were "wrong" with me, and she finished it with "...and at least I don’t have to wear makeup to look pretty." I was so fed up with her, so I responded, "At least I am capable of looking pretty." She was speechless, and I felt like such a champion because this was the first time I ever stood up to her.

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27. A Leap of Faith

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 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 comes to my apartment, and I go to hand him the book and begin to shut the door.

He puts his foot in the way to stop it and says, “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 hand him the book and said, “Then pick me up at 7.” Anyway, now we’re married.

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28. A Heavy Burden

I was part of a Secret Santa gift exchange while I was in college in one of my clubs. At one point during the exchange, this kind of nerdy guy got a collection of British currency, since he liked to collect foreign bills and coins. It was a really great gift, but this one girl made a really rude comment in front of everyone about it being a stupid gift.

Cue my mouth running off before my brain can stop it: "Karen, don’t be rude, he just didn’t want you to be the only one who gained 20 pounds this semester." There was a moment of complete silence, and then total pandemonium erupted. Her boyfriend tried to pick a fight with me and she burst into tears. It was not the best day for the club, but it was still one of my best comebacks.

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29. Twice as Nice

This guy I worked with had a stutter, which might have made me feel bad for him if he weren’t such a jerk. He was really religious and hated that I was gay. One day, he goes “Hey, d-do you think you’re going s-straight to heck because you’re gay?” And my response was “Hey Anthony, d-do you think God gave you a s-stutter so you could think twice about what you say to people?” The whole wait station stopped what they were doing.

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30. Making the Grade

In a class at university, each student had to give a presentation about a scientific paper and then answer some questions about it. We were told to ask the speaker questions, because otherwise the professor would, and his questions would obviously be harder. That professor was really brutal in his critiques of the presentations, but also fair and accurate.

In any case, I didn’t want people to face his wrath, so I asked a question after every single presentation. Yet when my turn came around, no student wanted to ask anything, so the professor asked me if I wanted to ask myself a question. Without even thinking about it, I said, "Say, how come your presentation was so extremely excellent?"

I was mentally preparing to be chewed out. Instead, the professor needed a minute to stop laughing, and then he gave me the best grade possible.

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31. Wet and Wild

I worked as a bartender at what was arguably the busiest bar in Boston circa 2015. On a typical, overwhelmingly busy Saturday, I was working the service bar and it was absolutely humming as it always was. At the time, I was making and distributing craft cocktails at breakneck speeds for servers, and also taking orders of the raving lunatics demanding to be quenched of what seemed to be an insatiable thirst.

It was a blur of ice and juice and madness as I crushed ice and fruit and squeezed bottles of syrups and juices and topped drinks with myriad garnishes. Basically, I was in the zone. I was crushing it, achieving God-tier levels of drink-making. While in the middle of doing so, I try to take a young lady’s order.

She says, “Um excuse me, you owe my friend a drink.” While I was still busy doing my thing, I asked, “Why?” to which she replied, “Because you got my friend wet.” Apparently there was a residual splash from one of the drinks I was making a little while back, nothing big. I knew what I had to do to put her in her place.

Without skipping a beat, I said, “Yeah, her and every girl who’s ever been in here.” I then turned away and carried on about my business. To this day, I’ve yet to experience that level of overwhelming self-satisfaction in my life. The girl didn’t even respond or try to order from me again. She knew she had been owned.

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32. Hiring for Dummies

At work at our small company, I was in a somewhat heated discussion with my bosses about why things kept going wrong. They’d been asking us to this somewhat complicated stuff, but they kept on hiring people who were really under-qualified for the job, and then they kept getting confused about why it would all fall apart.

So during this meeting, the upper management said something to the effect of, “Why does this keep happening, it's idiot proof.” I replied sharply, "Well, we need to stop hiring new idiots to test if that's true." I worked at a small enough company and was good enough at my job that this didn’t even get me fired.

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33. Third Time’s the Charm

When I was a kid, probably under 10 years old, my dad's best friend announced that he was getting married to his current girlfriend. This would be his third marriage, and I was vaguely aware of that. In fact, his love life had kind of given me the impression that marriages weren’t really that big of a deal or that permanent.

I asked him if I was invited to the wedding, and he said “No honey, it's adults only.” So I innocently replied to him, “That’s okay, I'll just come to the next one." I had no idea what I was implying, I just knew that this guy got married a lot. The best thing is, he actually did divorce his third wife, so 10-year-old me ended up being totally right.

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34. Going Solo

In class, I was the nerdy, five-foot-tall shy girl, and I was constantly getting paired with struggling or misbehaving kids to "help them." On this occasion, it was two popular guys in English class. One was your typical, 2000s-era comic-book jock, the other was a class clown who just didn't know when to stop or when to actually study.

Together, they unanimously agreed to do nothing. The entire time, they just made fun of our classmates while I made the world's ugliest word cloud and tried my best. I guess I had an epiphany at that point, because for the first time in my 15 years of life, I decided “screw this” and went to tell the teacher that they were being lazy jerks and I'd rather just do it solo.

It took a hot minute before jokester realized I'd even left, and when he pointed it out, the jock stood up looking ready to Hulk out of his low riders. The jock stood up and said, "What are you tattling on us for? It's not like we've done anything". And I replied, "Yeah, that's kind of the point." Then I just walked out of the completely silent class.

At the time, I was so used to being teased that I fully expected him to throw a chair at me on the way out. He didn’t, and apparently I looked so cool it gave me some accidental street cred my nerdy self was 100% eager to roll with.

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35. Sit Down and Shut up

I'm generally not a very confrontational person, but one time I went off on my friend's uncle. I’m a girl, and the three of us were drinking, having a good time, but the uncle started interrupting me every time I would try to talk, saying something like "Hey, the men are talking!" At first I thought it was funny, but he kept doing it.

He did it maybe a third time, at which point I crossed my arms and gave him the evil eye. He apologized, but I decided to drag it out, saying sarcastically, "Oh, no, I want to hear what you have to say. Must be pretty important if you have to interrupt me three times in a row. Please, continue. I mean, you'd have to be a real jerk to interrupt someone three times if you have nothing to say. Actually, let me sit down, I'm going to brace myself, because I imagine this is going to blow me away." He didn't interrupt me anymore.

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36. To Each Their Own

One of my co-workers, who happened to be gay, was struggling with a frustrating piece of equipment. I asked her why she didn't just do it a certain way that I thought was easier. She growled, "I don't know. I just really love making things harder." Without thinking, I quipped back, "Then why are you a lesbian?!" She almost fell on the floor, she was laughing so hard. She repeated the joke to everyone else the rest of the day.

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37. Right on Cue

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're about halfway through our performance when my partner clearly forgets what her line is. And 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. The class and professor loved it and all laughed. Probably the only quick-witted thing I've ever done in my life.

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38. Justice Is Served

When I was a broke college student, a wealthy older lawyer hit my car. No damage to his, but mine was crumpled, and I spent all of my money at the time keeping it on the road at the time. I was going literally 7 mph 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. This is where my trouble started.

He dodged the insurance calls for about two weeks, forcing me to pay out of pocket for the rental, about $600 of which I definitely didn’t have. I knew this guy was a jerk and a snooty lawyer—my dad is a court attorney and knew of him. So while I never used this flex before, I finally had to ask my dad to call him and talk some lawyer at him.

15 minutes later, I get a call that the insurance will go forward. Fast forward like eight years, and I’m waitressing and bartending at a swanky lounge where a Chamber of Commerce event is going on. It was just for local business people to rub elbows and network. Well, this same lawyer jerk is there and really feeling himself and charming the room.

He orders a drink from me and then stops and says, “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 want to open a tab for the drink or close out now?” He did not open a tab.

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39. This One Is Fire

This boy at my middle school thought he was all that, and he picked on me a lot. So one day he was telling the class “Yeah, I’m going to go home and cuddle with a girl by the fire and watch a movie.” I had enough of this kid, so I said immediately, “Yeah, moms are pretty great.” The kid never picked on me again.

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40. Smoked Her

I was on a holiday in Bulgaria with my parents when I was like seven, and they started chatting with another couple at the next table during dinner. I thought this couple was annoying, but my parents were happy they had someone to talk to, and they ended up inviting them to our table. The lady sat next to me, and after a while she asked me, "Would it bother you if I smoke?"

My answer was, "Lady, it wouldn't even bother me if you were burning." Seven years old……and apparently a huge jerk.

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41. Age Before Beauty Burns

One day, I was with friends at a movie theater. Although I don’t remember the film, it must have been something that appealed to teenagers, because even though we weren’t that old we were definitely the oldest people watching the movie, like by far. Unsurprisingly, the rest of the audience were kind of annoying.

While waiting for the previews to start, someone in the back makes a noise. Then someone repeats the noise; then, two more…and so on, because they are all immature little jerks. So I said out loud, "Jeez, this is getting old." When it all quieted down, a youngish person a couple rows behind me said, "So are you." Touche, you little jerk.

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42. The Pick-up Artist

This is the story of how my grandparents went on their first date, and it involves the greatest comeback ever. My grandpa was working at a sub shop at the register. My grandma was in line, and they had kind of met a few times in passing before. So she gets up to the register, and my grandfather starts trying to flirt with her.

Except, well, the way my grandpa flirts is to make fun of people, apparently. So he says cheekily, “How’d you get through life looking so ugly?” And my grandma replies without missing a beat, “I don’t know, but you’ve been doing it longer than I have.” They went on a date, and they’ve been happily married ever since.

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43. Smarter Than They Look

My work had a huge problem where our colleagues in other departments were being lazy and pretending they "didn't understand computers" so they wouldn't even have to try learning. It was a huge issue and we trying to figure out what to do with them and how to reprimand them. During a discussion about this, I said, "You know, when a dumb customer calls us and asks stupid questions, he pays us to be allowed to be dumb. These co-workers don’t have the same excuse.”

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44. A Man of Few Words

I was on my motorcycle in traffic, on a wet overpass with short jersey walls. The guy behind me was driving a bit too fast and slammed on his brakes, sliding into me as he did so. There was no damage as he was going slow enough to jut touch and push me about five feet before finally coming to a stop. The angle also had me going straight forward so I didn’t fall.

Still, had it been much faster, I would have been thrown over the edge and a careened toward a gruesome end. So obviously I was...not happy. I turned off the engine, got off the bike, and slowly walked over to the driver who hit me. It was only a few feet, and when he saw me coming to him, he furiously started raising his manual window.

I could see him struggling to pump the winder. When I got there, I just knocked on his window, pointed at him, and turned around and walked away. He looked terrified. I didn't think about it until later, but it must have been a scary sight. A guy you just hit who is wearing a black helmet, with shaded visor, black heavy thick jacket, black heavy riding pants, black thick and metal studded gloves, and black leather boots. Then he knocks on your window and points at you for being a supreme idiot. I had no idea, I just wanted to talk to him.

Comebacks FactsShutterstock

45. The Fast and the Furious

Back in high school, I was a slow, fat kid, and gym class was horrible. One day for PE, we had to jog along the beach, have a swimming lesson, then jog back. I was the last one back to the school grounds, and the gym teacher was standing at the school gate. He told me that because I was too slow, he was going to lock the gate and I'd have to jog to the next one that was close by.

Instead of crumpling, I told him that if he locked me out of school, I would tell the principal and see what happened. He let me in straight away. I kind of wished he had called my bluff.

Comebacks FactsShutterstock

46. Act Your Age

I had an older lady road rage me after I pulled into a parallel space in front of a police department. She apparently didn’t see me or was already angry at that point, and ended up rear-ending me while going at a really slow pace. 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.

Well, she didn’t think about where she was doing this. The officers came out in time to see her smash me that second time. I got out all shaky-legged, wide-eyed and scattered. An officer 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, and screaming at me for being a "disrespecting millennial."

I replied, "Ma'am, I may be a millennial, but at least I won't be detained for child endangerment.” See, there was another thing she didn’t realize: My four-year-old was also in the car with me. I’m not that ashamed to admit that I called her a whole bunch of awful words after that, but she did endanger my child and I was absolutely furious.

The entire time, the officer was just chuckling at me and mildly telling me to watch my language. She was screaming back, and she was practically purple she was so angry. I still wasn’t over it weeks later, so I went to her court date. She lost her license permanently had to do 80 hours of anger management, 120 hours of community service, and was credited for three days behind bars. She was 84, and quite a piece of work.

Comebacks FactsShutterstock

47. What Are Friends for?

A friend of mine was trash-talking me while we were all bowling. Off the cuff, I yelled at him, "You're adopted! Your parents don't even like you!" He laughed, but I didn’t really realize what I’d done. Three hours later, it hit me and I turned around and said, "Oh my God, you are adopted, I completely forgot! I'm so sorry dude." He just thought it made the whole situation even funnier.

Awful First Dates FactsShutterstock

48. Man Up

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 into trouble, but that's how I knew I won.

Worst Thing Done on a Date FactsShutterstock

49. Let’s Table This Discussion

I'll never forget the moment a family walked into the local pub I was working at. 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?" and he snapped back, "Well, a table would be nice" all gruff and don’t mess with me. But I had the perfect reply.

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.

Comebacks FactsShutterstock

50. A Tall Order

I was pretty tall from a young age, tall enough that I was bigger than my aunt when I was at the age of about nine or 10. We were joking around before a trip out to a restaurant, and I was saying what I wanted to eat. She teasingly said, "Children should be seen and not heard." My response made her burst out laughing.

I swiftly responded with, "Adults should be taller than children." In fact, we still laugh about it to this day.

Can't Shop There FactsShutterstock

Sources: Reddit,





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