The Comeback Kid

The Comeback Kid

I am the queen of delayed comebacks. I typically let people release their anger by verbally beating me and I just take it. It’s not because I am a wimp, I mean, on the rare occasion when I can think of something to say, I say it, but mostly I just sit there, mouth open and stare. I believe this is why I make a good administrator in high stress corporations. When I am asked at interviews “How do you handle people when they are highly stressed and volatile” my response always includes such adjectives as “laid back” and “very patient", however, if I were being one hundred percent truthful, those two adjectives would be replaced by “slow” and “thick witted”. Don’t get me wrong, when I am amongst friends and people I am comfortable with I often enjoy witty banter but in situations where I am truly upset, I just sit there and drool on myself. This is something which has plagued me ever since I was young.

The earliest memory I have on my path to becoming the “No Comeback Kid” was in the third grade at soccer practice. Our soccer team was in a line doing a shooting drill. I loved shooting drills because for such a short person I had quite the foot. I was four people away from taking my turn when Jack Cranston took a shot ran in a circle and then cut in front of me. I had decided during the prior school year that Jack Cranston was somewhat of my nemesis. The reason being, he looked like me. He and I had the exact same bowl cut (thanks mom), we were the same height, we dressed the same and we had almost the same Huffy dirt bike. However, let the record show that my dirt bike had pegs and his didn’t. That’s right Jack, STICKEN IT! Of course I wanted to be a boy so looking like Jack was mostly my fault, but still my third grade mind had decided that he needed to die. So when he cut in front of me, I was enraged. I grabbed him by the shoulder and swung him around. “Who said you could cut?” I asked crossing my arms and widening my stance. You know, just in case he wanted to fight. Seriously, this is how my young brain worked. “I did” he replied. Maybe he didn’t notice my fighting stance, because if he had, I am sure he would have been afraid. I sat there in silence squinted my eyes and turned red. I had no comeback. ‘I did’? “I did’? Genius. That may have been the best comeback I had ever heard. I was completely befuddled. I brewed about it for the next half hour. Jack’s “I did” ran through my head during the rest of the shooting drills, the corner kick drills and it wasn’t until we started moving to the end of the field to do sprints that it came to me…that’s right… a mere 30 minutes later.

I tenaciously walked towards Jack, going over the glory that was about to befall me when everyone heard my masterminded comeback. This moment was going to be that epic moment that the third grade talked about for years, maybe even until we graduated to middle school. I walked up to Jack and his friends, stood directly in front of him raising my voice just a little so his friends could hear and stated “Of course you did because who else would?” Jack looked at me dumbfounded. That’s right Mr. Cranston, take that. I saw a fellow team mate, Tom Jordan, shift from one foot to the other and thought he was going to shake my hand. I started to bring my hand towards him when I realized that he was just shifting his feet so I diverted my hand to my hair and tucked one side of my bowl cut behind my ear. Oh that was close. I wasn’t going to ruin a heroic comeback with a mistaken handshake. I was smarter than that. After a couple of seconds Jack looked me dead in the eyes and said “Huh? What are you talking about?” All of Jack’s friends started laughing. At this point most people, even third graders, would know enough to let it go, drop it, move on to the sprints and save whatever pride they could. But I wasn’t most people; I was Deidre Daly with a bowl cut, boys clothes and a dirt bike with pegs who had the comeback of the year. I decided to just repeat it louder, “OF COURSE YOU DID BECAUSE WHO ELSE WOULD?” Everyone turned towards me. I shook my head and smiled. Nobody knew what in the name of all that was holy I was talking about. The silence that followed could ruin a person and was broken by a random voice, “Gaylord.” What's worse is I would have repeated my statement a third time and possibly added an explanation had my coach not saved me. He walked over turned me around to face the field and blew his whistle. We all started sprinting.

Of course throughout the rest of the year I retold the story and added the necessary changes. These changes involved a quick retort which flew out of my mouth not seconds after Jack cut me, with teammates picking me up onto their shoulders and cheering and a hand shake from Tom Jordan. I would have added to my tale a trophy for “Best on the Field Comeback” at the town soccer awards ceremony had I been able to get my hand on one. But the reality, as I said before, comes down to two adjectives: "Slow" and "Thick Witted"