Image from Don McMinn, 2022
(Not to be confused with “Spirit in the Sky” by Norman Greenbaum.)
Have you ever had those moments when you wish you’d given the perfect clapback or pithy retort in some situation – but it’s too late? This sums up the essence of the French idiom, “L’esprit de l’escalier”, or the spirit of the staircase. It’s when you’ve already descended or ascended somewhere else, that the perfect remark hits you.
Well, I find that the ‘90s had a few memorable instances of this situation. Take the comedy movie The Mask starring Jim Carrey, where he’s confronted by his landlady Mrs. Peenman for making a disturbance one night – during a rather heated exchange she refers to Carrey’s character Stanley as “a big nothing”. After she storms off, Stanley says out loud, “Aren’t you due back at the laboratory to get your BOLTS tightened?!?! (I should’ve said THAT!)” But alas, the moment has passed.
Then, on an episode of Seinfeld (called “The Comeback”), George Costanza is in a meeting with Steinbrenner’s management and is gorging himself on shrimp and cocktail sauce. One of the guys says: “Hey George, the ocean called! They’re running out of shrimp.” Whereupon everyone laughs at George’s gluttony.
Oh, you’ve gotta love the hyperbole and then George’s dismay while driving away, in which he suddenly thinks up a comeback: “Well, the Jerk Store called, and they’re running out of you.” Even though his friends discourage him from using that line at the next opportunity – since that ship has already sailed – he can’t stop ruminating about it and letting it get to him. L’esprit de l’escalier strikes again.
He does, of course, get to deliver the line but it doesn’t have the same “oomph” (or oooohhh!!) that one would’ve hoped for.
In any case: have YOU ever had one of those moments? Perhaps it wasn’t so much abrasive humour or jabs as such, but just a time when you did an interview, or a presentation, or other important interaction, where you didn’t think of the perfect thing to say to a given question until AFTER?
It is perfectly natural to “kick” yourself over the missed window, and even a little natural to want to ruminate on it – within reasonable limits! In moments like this, the best therapy is to write down the interaction and how it went, then do the strikethrough edit in red – replacing it with red text of what you wish you’d said. Then imagine the rest of the dialogue, editing where needed. Even inject some humour if you want, since nobody will see it except you! (Laughter can still be the best medicine.) Then stop thinking about it and get on with your life, lest you miss the next window of opportunity.
Going back to the theme of ‘90s movies: I’m sure most of you have watched Groundhog Day with Bill Murray as Phil the weatherman, and the story greatly resonated with you based on having the ability to wake up and correct whatever error or missed opportunity arose in the course of “the day that was on auto-replay”. So, with this special power, Phil is able to vastly improve upon his life and those of the people around him – and while I’m sure he could’ve seized upon many moments to address the staircase spirit, he never does so! What does this tell you – that some things in life are more important than ruminating over missed remarks.
{Spoiler alert ahead for an almost 30-year-old movie}
Of course, in some more sombre and high-stakes scenarios, you’ll wish you had noticed how you were being manipulated and had the chance to make an arresting comeback that the gig was up. Case in point: The Usual Suspects, another amazing ‘90s film, in which the lead villain Verbal Kint (a.k.a. Keyser Soze) is misleading the detective Dave Kujan during a bitter interrogation. Verbal does so by surreptitiously gleaning bits of info off the bulletin board behind the unsuspecting detective.
Upon being released due to lack of evidence, Kujan then notices one clue, then another, then another, that he was being played like a piano the whole time. Had he noticed sooner, he could’ve invoked l’esprit de l’escalier and said to Verbal – while gesturing to the bulletin board – “See anything you like up there, buddy?!”
One book I’ve read twice is “Getting to Yes” by Fisher and Ury, all about the art of negotiation. They talk about calling out subtle tricks of manipulation, thus equipping you with the means of avoiding l’esprit de l’escalier – and yes, they even advocate using humour in some cases to diffuse situations. I highly recommend this if you haven’t read it already.
So, are you suitably equipped to both laugh and learn from the esprit de l’escalier?