On television situation comedies, the comebacks are snappy. Every wisecrack is immediately one-upped, as if the insultee knew exactly what the insulter was about to say and was waiting with a glib retort on the tip of her tongue. And in fact, this is true, because the actors have a script to take home and study.

It is a different story with the negative political ads that plagued us for weeks up until the recent election. Even though the writers had time to think up clever replies to the insults of the opposing political party, they mostly didn’t come across as witty. More often, they just seemed mean or stupid or both. It doesn’t help that we here in northern New York hear all of Vermont’s negative ads as well as our own.

I must admit, though, that I enjoyed seeing the terrible photographs each side selected to portray their opponents. They are just like all of the terrible pictures your friends and family take of you at festive gatherings, that you secretly peel out of the albums and throw away. Or is that just me?

“Arthur Dimmesdale is a sniveling flip-flopping womanizing hypocrite who couldn’t fight his way out of a wet paper bag!” sternly announces the narrator, accompanying a photograph of Dimmesdale apparently taken just as he is falling asleep at his computer. Dimmesdale’s eyes are unfocussed and he is drooling out of one corner of his mouth. His shirt is rumpled.

Now Dimmesdale’s opponent, looking fit, manly and reliable, appears. “I’m Roger Chillingworth and I support this message!” he shouts.

You would, I think.

Next, we see a paid political advertisement in which an angry, possibly psychotic man is gesticulating wildly. The video cuts to a scene where various swarthy, suspicious looking foreigners are leering provocatively. (How do you know they are foreigners? You can just tell.)

“Roger Chillingworth!” a smug male voice announces. “Do you trust this man?”

“I’m a woman,” says another voice,” and I don’t trust Chillingworth as far as I can throw him on women’s issues. I’m voting for Arthur Dimmesdale.” An image of  Dimmesdale, this time looking vibrant and handsome, yet potentially sensitive to women’s issues, appears on the screen.

Fortunately, both Dimmesdale and Chillingworth are from Vermont — or is it Massachusetts? — so we didn’t have to make a decision between the two. Anyway, I’m glad that’s over now for a while.

Unfortunately, one does not get a script to rehearse in real life. I have had experiences with people who insulted me in the same way over and over again, while I stood around, unsure how to respond. In every case, once I thought of the perfect answer and resolved to say it the next time, I waited in vain for the insult to be repeated.

Writing letters has the advantage of giving a person time to rework his words, without giving the opponent a chance to get in his two-cents’ worth. Example:

“You will probably say blah blah, to which I can only reply (insert something wickedly funny and scathing here).”

Saving face is of course all-important in these matters, and some people think they can accomplish this by telling their friends their own revised and improved versions of actual conversations.

“So he says blah blah blah. So then I says–get this–you can take this job and shove it!”

Their friends naturally take such stories with a grain of salt.

I didn’t realize how common this rewriting of history is until recently when I was talking with a friend at the restaurant where she works. Some of the other young women in the wait staff were laughing about this same phenomenon, which they all said they had experienced.

“I should’ve told my boyfriend he was a big, fat jerk,”said Gloria, “but I didn’t think of it in time. So I waited a while, called him back, made some small talk, and then yelled ‘Because you’re a big, fat jerk!’ and hung up.”

Gloria showed how she did, thumb and little finger extended, a haughty sidelong look on her face.

“Click!” she said.

There! I guess she showed him.

Have a good week.