The Comeback in the nick of time!

You know those situations where you have an encounter, you don’t know what to say and then you mumble some lame, nonsensical comment, only to think of the perfect comeback hours later? Well me too, except for yesterday.

I was standing at the Membership counter at Costco, waiting for the employee to finish with the current customer. Rather than standing right at the counter where I might make the employee uncomfortable, I stayed back about 3 or 4 feet from the counter. There was an older man, 75ish, in line behind me and just as the guy was finishing up with the first customer, the man walked past me and went up to the counter.

The Costco employee finishes and then walks to where the old guy is and says “can I help you?” I’m waiting for him to point my way and reply, “no, he was first”. That didn’t happen and I was pretty hot about it. I didn’t say a thing, just simply stepped closer to the counter, making the employee nervous as previously avoided. He looks up and says “do you need something”, to which I reply “I was just waiting for you to help me.”

The man who stepped past me looks my way, winks at me and then says, “I didn’t mean to cut in front of you.” This was the defining moment. I paused for a few seconds, looked directly at him and said, very clearly, “Actually, I think you did. You knew I was in line ahead of you, but you just decided that your time was more valuable than mine.” I think he was surprised that I didn’t just roll over. No further words were exchanged; no victory was obtained. But I felt a lot better for having given him my perspective, rather than simply raising my hand and saying, “no problem”. What do you think?