Being hopelessly inept at it doesn’t change the fact that I am inordinately impressed whenever I hear somebody press home a point with a succinct, hit-the-nail-on-its-head, idiomatic phrase. In gatherings or social affairs, you won’t be hard-pressed to find the life of the party or the social wit — more often than not, (s)he is the individual who rolls off glib remarks at a drop of a hat, and who leaves the audience chortling, nodding in agreement and inwardly wondering if they’ve somehow missed the point.

I am forever waiting for that opportune moment when I, too, could be imbued with such smooth, rapier-like timing and say something slick like " The eleventh pun always gets a laugh, even if no pun in ten did ." Or at least a just tiny fraction of Piers Anthony’s fertile punny concoctions for his Xanth novels (e.g., Centaur Aisle, Air Apparent, the perennially late character Justin Thyme).

But sad to say, I just don’t have it. More often than not I’d be hampered by a slow mental process (er, slow on the uptake?), sloppy timing, inarticulateness, and occasionally, consideration for the subject (person). Usually, by the time I can think of some sleek repartee, the moment has already passed and everybody else has jumped on to a new topic. If ever I blurt out anything remotely clever and funny at the same time, it’s more of an accident than by design.

Sometimes it makes me wish I had Adam Sandler’s remote control (Click) to make time stop while I reach for my dictionary or ‘List of Witty Things to Say for Every Occasion’. That sure would things simpler, except that it could spoil the momentum or something (spontaneity?).

I guess that’s one reason why I take refuge in writing. Collecting witticisms and devising ways in which they can be delivered with perfect timing and the right amount of deadpan panache isn’t all that hard when you have full control of situations and characters. Moreover, you can always rewrite or dispatch certain characters if you think they’re getting too big for their breeches (or too incoherent). Or something.

While I’m floundering around for a nice clincher to finish off this brief note (*thinking hard*)… uhhh, okay, I give up. I haven’t thought of anything yet, but I’ll get back to you on that as soon as I’ve come up with something subtle or sublimely witty.