You come up with a great comeback...

CommandoDude

10 minutes after the argument...

DAMN. AND IT WOULD BE SO GOOD TOO. IT'S PERFECT.

but you can't make it.

because that would seem really petty. I mean, that argument just ended 10 minutes ago.

>:c

DYRE

SAY IT ANYWAY!

Longfellow

L'esprit de l'escalier or "staircase wit", it's called. The best arguments always come at some mundane moment like when you're climbing the stairs.

I remember when I was about six some kid was arguing with me about, of all things, the existence of a god. He was raised Jewish. I wasn't religious--in fact, my family is so non-religious that the very concept was foreign to me until this same classmate brought it up (he had previously asked me if I was Jewish or Christian, and I had no idea what the fuck these words meant so I asked my dad). I had never heard any side of a religious argument, and though I was inclined to think a god did not exist, I had to devise my arguments on my own.

So this kid came at me with this: if there's a storm out, who decides if you get hit by lightning? If you get struck by lightning, who decides if you live or not? God does! ...OK, it's a lousy argument, but I'm not good on the fly and I was fucking six years old. I thought about it that afternoon though and reasoned that lightning can kill or not kill somebody on its own--why do you need God?

Not the world's best comeback either, but I've remembered that day as both my first religious argument and as an early and stark example of l'esprit de l'escalier. Now that I look back, I think I did more religious debating before the age of twelve than I've done after....

Tnu1138

Dracula always has to have the last word.

Stormtroper

SotiCoto

^^^  ... The correct answer would have been: "THOR decides if you get hit by lightning. I decide if you get hit by a hammer. Which do you choose?"