Killer Comebacks

I am sooooo sick of all the parenting buttinskis out there who think they can go ahead and stick their nose into everyone else’s motherly/fatherly business. It absolutely amazes me how easily these people just spew their opinions like they’re friggin’ Dr. Spock himself. If I wanted to know what you thought about the job I’m doing, chances are, I’d ask you. However, I don’t give a rat’s rear entrance what you think, so keep your unsolicited advice and/or comments to your own nosy self. The problem is that I’m always great at coming up with a killer response AFTER the fact, but I wish to everything I could come up with a clever “mind your own business” comeback right there on the spot.

The worst is when your kid is throwing a fit the size of Texas somewhere out in public, and you get that shake of the head from a nearby gawker. On the inside, you’re screaming, “Move along people — there’s nothin’ to see here“, but on the outside, you put your best poker face forward and act like you’ve got it all under control. But then the lolly gagger drops the old, “Are you gonna just let him cry like that?” on you, and you just stand there in shock, thinking, “Did this hag REALLY just say that?!“ And instead of punching her in the face as you explain that your child is being a brat today, you freeze in your tracks without even the slightest rebound coming to mind. It’s only afterwards that you think of twenty clever things you SHOULD have said to her.

It also sucks when someone of “authority” such as a doctor looks down his nose at you as if you should be hauled off for child endangerment right then and there. I just recently experienced this with the old geezer at our pediatrician’s office who is WAY overdue to retire. Dr. Scrooge had apparently seen that my son was playing his Ipod while waiting for him to wobble his very ancient booty into the exam room and felt it his duty to read me the riot act about the horrors of video games and the damage they inflict on the developing brain. This grumpy old fossil all but demanded that I limit my son’s playing time to no more than thirty minutes per week. Ha! As if! Once again, I sat there dumbfounded at the audacity of this man who clearly hadn’t hung out with a five-year-old for more than ten minutes at a stretch, yet I still found myself unable to shoot back at him with something witty until, of course, I was pulling out of the parking lot later and came up with a whole flippin’ list.

I wish it could all go down like the scene I experienced at the mall this morning, where one of the nearby moms just ripped right into a Nancy Know-It-All. This mom’s five-year-old son had tagged along to window shop and had stopped by the playplace for some rest.  He proceeded to do flips on the mat to entertain himself. And let me just tell you that this boy has got some mad gymnastics skills! He’s just incredible to watch. However, Nancy Know-It-All on the bench next to me felt obligated to question the safety of what the kid was doing, as if his mom (who, by the way, was standing RIGHT THERE) was completely clueless. It was AWESOME then to watch this mom whip right back at her by telling her, “it’s not at all unsafe IF you know what you’re doing” and that perhaps “SHE shouldn’t’ try it.“ I’ve never so badly wanted to bust out into a fist pump as I did at that particular moment.

Maybe I should just start a standard list of comebacks so that I’m fully prepared for any one of these confrontations in the future. I could keep it in my wallet and refer to it if and when necessary. I mean, it wouldn’t be weird if I told some busy body who’s all up in my business to hang on for a minute while I fish out a response from the bottom of my purse, would it?