You know how after someone says something rude to you and you just smile and walk away and later you think of the perfect comeback?  I have done the all my life.  Probably, that’s good thing. Pick your battles.  Make friends not enemies. If you can’t say something nice, say nothing at all.  Be nice. Be lady-like.

I call snappy come-backs “zingers.”  More and more these days, zingers come readily to my mind. Usually, I just bite my tongue.  Getting the best of someone usually just isn’t worth it.

In looking at today’s date just now, I suddenly realized I got married sixty years ago today.  Let me tell you, there were lots of times during that long marriage that I bit my tongue.  There were other times I hit back.  It was rarely worth it.

Still, there is this one example that I really wish I hadn’t walked away from.

A bride always remembers what size her wedding dress was and how much she weighed then.  I don’t know why.  Size  7.  117 pounds. And this personal tidbit will make you cringe: I was a virgin.  That is not something I would recommend, but it was very common sixty years ago.

Shortly after I got married, we were with a group of Jim’s air force friends.  For some reason, I really can’t remember how this conversation got started, he said, “Jean was such a prude, I didn’t know she was fat until after we got married.” As I recall, no one, including me, said anything.  Everyone kind of looked embarrassed and moved on.  I wasn’t a prude.  Or fat. 117 pounds.  Size 7.

And this morning, decades later, I remembered that unfortunate moment.  And now I know exactly what I should have said. “And I didn’t know how ugly you are until after we got married.”

Zingers are rarely worth it.  But today, decades too late, I’m glad to get that off my chest.

Let me close on a happier note.  Once Jim and I were in the Prado looking a a Peter-Paul Rubens painting of  beautiful, full-bodied women.  TheThree Muses. The word is Rubenesque. Jim was rarely witty, but he said” I can’t believe you took your clothes off for that man.” I was not a size seven any more, and I laughed my head off.