#93. 39 snappy comebacks

To ten annoyingly common things people might say to you over the holidays

Dec 13, 2024

I consider myself one of the foremost scholars of Buffy The Vampire Slayer in the United States of America. I feel this way mostly due to the fact that I took a course on Buffy in college, and my professor would always come to me when she was trying to find a specific scene (“that’s in the middle of season 4, Dr. Kreider!”), but also simply due to the sheer amount of times I’ve watched all seven seasons in the last 20 years (at least seven times).

It’s actually quite common for me to quote Buffy in everyday life (not that most people would catch it!), but there are truly an endless amount of quotes appropriate for pretty much any situation.

The holiday season is upon us, and with it a minefield of sometimes uncomfortable, prying questions (and statements) from loved ones and strangers alike that might make your brain spin around and explode.

When surprised, I’m usually a person who stutters and says something dumb in the moment and then comes up with the perfect comeback a few minutes later. BUT NOT THIS YEAR.

Here are 10 real things people have said to me in recent history about being a person in their 30s who doesn’t want children, and 39 snappy comebacks ripped straight from Buffy to consider. Some of these may apply to you even if you already have kids (people always ask if you’re going to have more… 🤡) or if you’re still on the fence, too.

“Oh, so you hate kids?”

“I didn’t say I hate kids, I’m just not gonna get way extracurricular with it.”
“Yes, [Xander], once again you’ve managed to boil a complex thought down to its simplest possible form.”
“Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to the dark side… hold on. No. Um…” *walks away*

“You’ll never experience true love if you don’t have kids.”

“Wild monkey love, or tender Sarah McLachlan love?”
“Love makes you do the wacky.”
“This is insane troll logic.”
“Yep, that’s the plan.”
“Crown yourself the ice queen.”

“You still have time to change your mind.”

“Vast acres of time, in which I could plant crops. Now tell me about [Brian] and his intentions.”
“Bored now.” *walks away*
“One of us is very confused, and I honestly don’t know which.”

“Do you have kids?”

“I have at least three lives to contend with, none of which really mesh. It’s kind of like oil and water and a third unmeshable thing.”
“No, but I’m totally supportive if you do. I’m a flying buttress of support.”
“Did anyone else just go to a scary visual place?”
“No… I have the emotional maturity of a blueberry scone.”

“Are you pregnant?!” (usually in response to seeing you’re not drinking at a party)

“I don’t think ‘no’ is a strong enough word.”
“No, but I like to dress for the ambiguity.”
“Panic is a thing people can share in times of crisis.”
“If I was, it’d be a good day to buy that lottery ticket.”

“You’re wasting your genetics.”

“[Cordelia], your mouth is open. Sound is coming from it. This is never good.”
“I believe the subtext here is rapidly becoming text.”
“Yes, that’s exactly the most appalling thing you could have said.”
“Robots are the strangest people.”

“So when are you going to have (more) kids?”

“We’re right behind you, only further back.”
“Variety is the spice of bad.”
“Well let’s not jump to any conclusions.”
“I’ll pay you to talk about Star Wars again.”
*Looks at partner* “We bail now, right?”
“It’s funny how the Earth never opens up and swallows you when you want it to.”

“You’re still young.”

“Yeah, I’m just a kid. In a world full of big, bad things.”
“If someone could wake me when it’s time to decide, that would be great.”
“Was that your sarcastic voice, or your regular voice?”

“You should freeze your eggs.”

“That’s okay. I’m just going to go home, lie down, and listen to country music. The music of pain.”
“Well, I’ll just jump off that bridge when I come to it.”
“Who died and made you the Iron Chef?”

“Once you meet the right man, you’ll change your mind about kids.”

“The one guy that’s really liked me, and he’s a demon robot. What does that say about me?”
“[Cordelia], have you ever actually heard of tact?”
“Testosterone is a great equalizer. It turns all men into morons.”
“You really haven’t been dating lately.”

“How to Show Up For Your Friends Without Kids – and How to Show Up For Kids and Their Parents” by Anne Helen Petersen for Culture Study

There is so much good advice in here! Bookmark this as a must-read. I plan to come back to this issue often.

“Parents feel like their friends without kids have left them behind and are flaky. Kid-free people feel like their parent friends only want to hang out with other parents and are also flaky. Parents feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; single people feel like society is incredibly hostile to them; partnered people without kids feel like society is incredibly hostile to them.
All of this is true, because society is just flat-out hostile to all manner of people who aren’t exorbitantly wealthy. That hostility can force us into a defensive crouch where it’s very difficult to see anything past our own struggles, or to empathize with someone whose struggles feel like things that would make your life easier. (A vivid example from the pandemic: people with kids wished for the peace and quiet of people’s lives without kids; many people without kids felt incredibly isolated and yearned for the presence of other people).”

“On allowing for time and space,” a conversation with Lauren Groff and Scarlett Harris for The Creative Independent

This piece was much discussed in my writing club group chat this week. So many incredible little nuggets of goodness from Lauren Groff in here (even if The Vaster Wilds was quite possibly my least-loved book of the year):

Have you ever had any pushback from people who might be taken aback by a mother not doing performing care in the ways we’re conditioned to?
“I think that when someone says something like that, the immediate impulse is to feel as though I am calling into question their life choices, but of course, I’m just saying what works for me. Everyone has a different situation, so I think people get very defensive and for a good reason. I mean especially if you’re a mother, nobody’s doing it right. I’m not doing it right. Nobody’s doing it right because it’s not possible to be correct and a woman at the same time, right?”

“A Man Was Murdered in Cold Blood and You’re Laughing?” by Jia Tolentino for The New Yorker

Trust Jia Tolentino to deliver the best article I’ve read yet about the murder of UnitedHealthcare’s C.E.O (a Minnesotan, I might add – we have a lot of large companies here, even if people tend to forget about us!):

“Of course, the solution, in the end, can’t be indifference—not indifference to the death of the C.E.O., and not the celebration of it, either. But who’s going to drop their indifference first? At this point, it’s not going to be the people, who have a lifetime of evidence that health-insurance C.E.O.s do not care about their well-being. Can the C.E.O. class drop its indifference to the suffering and death of ordinary people? Is it possible to do so while achieving record quarterly profits for your stakeholders, in perpetuity?”

We Solve Murders was my first Richard Osman, and I can now say I understand the appeal. This book is *pure* chips, with absolutely zero detectable deeper themes. If you need a true brain vacation for the holidays, look no further than this delightful romp around the globe with a hilarious band of misfits.

I knew Pamela Anderson made headlines when she decided to ditch makeup at public events last year, but I didn’t know it was partially in response to her makeup artist, Alexis Vogel, dying of breast cancer.

“She was the best. And since then, I just felt, without Alexis, it’s just better for me not to wear makeup,” she told the magazine, adding that the move has been “freeing, and fun, and a little rebellious too. Because I did notice that there were all these people doing big makeup looks, and it’s just like me to go against the grain and do the opposite of what everyone’s doing.”

Next week is my third(!) annual end-of-year “best of” wrap-up list, and then I’m taking a few weeks off to binge watch Gossip Girl and read all the books that have been sitting neglected on my nightstand all year. If you have any requests for “best of “categories (like book, album, essay, lesson, etc.), drop them below :)