Yeah? Well, The Jerk Store called, and they're running out of YOU!

A holiday meditation on comebacks, comings-back, letting go--and (as always) how codependence makes you a bad writer.

Before I get into this, a quick reminder: annual “How To Glow in the Dark” subscriptions are half off through January 1! Just use this link to buy.

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“Well, The Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of YOU!”

I’m sure the “Seinfeld” fans among you are already visualizing the scene: George Costanza is seething, humiliated. He’s driving away from a meeting in which a coworker named Reilly mocked him for gorging on shrimp cocktail. (“Hey, George, the ocean called—they’re running out of shrimp.”)

George is now experiencing what the French call l’esprit de l’escalier, staircase wit: a phenomenon in which one thinks of the perfect comeback, or what feels like the perfect comeback, a moment too late for deployment.

The Jerk Store called!! It’s PERFECT—why didn’t he think of it sooner?! Haunted, George becomes obsessed with recreating the entire encounter—shrimp, Reilly, humiliation, and all—just so he can deliver that line this time.

Never mind George’s friends, who tell him this plan makes no sense. (“There are no jerk stores!”) Never mind the fact that Reilly isn’t even a threat anymore: he’s lost his job with the Yankees and gone to work for Firestone in Ohio. George’s fantasy must be fulfilled. He engineers an elaborate, nonsensical business proposal—let’s bring Firestone tires to Yankee Stadium!—just so he can get back in a meeting room with Reilly and stage his re-enaction. Maybe this time, things will go differently.

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This email contains some holiday-season writing advice for you. Bear with me.

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“The Comeback” is a top-10 classic Seinfeld episode for a reason. I mean, who hasn’t been there? Who hasn’t thought up a perfect line just a moment too late to use on the schoolyard bully, the shit-stirring relative, the professional rival? Who hasn’t obsessed over how things might have gone, if only…?

Yes, and: if I had to guess, I’d bet you specifically experience this phenomenon a lot more than the gen pop.

Because you’re a writer, for heaven’s sake, or someone in a writing-adjacent field. Or you’re just one of my IRL friends, so I know you. (And love you.)

I am also going to go ahead and guess that you’re sensitive and observant, more prone than others to noticing, remembering, and ruminating on things. As a result, you’re also prone to emotional overwhelm and cognitive overload. A human brain, even a very smart one, can only hold so much at once—and when you’re communicating face to face with someone, particularly in a high-conflict or anxiety-triggering situation, there is a lot to hold.

I’m guessing most of you have to sit with charged interpersonal encounters at length before you know what you even think about them, let alone what you feel.

I’m guessing you started writing in the first place because nuanced self-expression felt so much easier—or perhaps safer—on paper.

Right?

If so: I’m guessing your memories are rather Talmudic on the whole, their margins scribbled full of second guesses. Why didn’t I clap back here? Why did I say that was okay when it so wasn’t? Why didn’t I get mad? Why did I people-please? Why didn’t I stick up for myself? Why did I say such a weaksauce thing? Why didn’t I say anything at all?

Don’t worry: me, too.

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At the end of “The Comeback,” unbelievably, despite the odds, George gets his moment with Reilly. He flies to Ohio. He enters the conference room at Firestone. He puts down a big tray of cocktail shrimp. He gorges on that cocktail shrimp as theatrically as he can.

Reilly looks at him. “Hey, George, the ocean called—they’re running out of shrimp,” he says.

“Well, The Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of you!” George shouts, incandescent.

“What’s the difference? You're their all-time best seller,” Reilly claps back.

George is utterly unprepared for this. In his panic, he shouts a line Kramer suggested weeks ago—“well, I slept with your wife!”—only to discover that Reilly’s wife is in a coma.

Oops.

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This is the real lesson of The Jerk Store: comebacks are a mirage.

George’s fantasy of what would happen if he said The One Perfect Thing was laughably at odds with what actually happened. And I’m afraid that if your own fantasies of self-advocacy came true, the same would likely apply.

Deep down, you know it. You know this in a part of you far more primal, powerful, and intelligent than the part that writes—the part that manufactures all those polished observations and witty turns of phrase.

You cannot talk your way out of loss, rejection, or pain. You just can’t.

Why didn’t you clap back at that bully? Because an intelligent part of you knew that even if you landed the perfect line once, you’d never, ever feel safe around that person. Before you could even try, therefore, that part of you got out of the interaction and out of the room.

Why didn’t you stick up for yourself? Because a part of you knew what would happen if you did: nothing. You knew that despite whatever the other person claimed to the contrary, that other person was too caught up in their own stuff to really prioritize you. You knew that they were never going to listen to what you were saying—not really, not at all—let alone make changes based on what they heard.

That reality was unbearably painful—I’m guessing it still is—so an intelligent part of you decided to spare you the pain of facing it, if only just for one more day.

Why didn’t you get mad? Because when you’re a woman or marginalized, no matter what other people say, getting mad backfires. It backfires most of the time.

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The comeback fantasy isn’t one of vanquishment or liberation. It doesn’t free George of Reilly. On the contrary, it keeps George in Reilly’s company far longer than circumstances otherwise would have.

Rather, the comeback fantasy is one of connection.

It’s a lonely person’s fantasy: a way to justify coming back and back to someone or someone(s) who aren’t giving you what you need when you’re also not ready or willing to let go. Maybe you’ve invested so much time in the relationship that the prospect of “losing” that investment horrifies you. Maybe you’re horrified by the prospect of grief to come. Maybe you don’t know or trust whatever else is out there. Maybe you don’t trust yourself. Or maybe you’re just in love. I don’t know.

Whatever it is, this holiday season, as you move through what is for most adults the most tender and stressful time of the year for interpersonal encounters of all kinds, I hope you remember that comebacks are just a mirage.

Go easy on yourself. Stop trying to master and own what you can’t and no one else on Earth could, either.

Remember also that you have nothing—NOTHING—to be ashamed of for not always self-advocating in the moment. In your lack of self-advocacy, there is probably a deeper intelligence.

That intelligence is worth investigating. The more time you spend with it, the better a writer you will become.

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Which brings me to the professional point I want to make about all this: