Being at a loss for words can be incredibly frustrating.
Particularly when someone has just thrown an insult in your direction.
While your brain is simply screaming to take them down, sometimes it's just impossible to find the right words in the heat of the moment.
Redditor anonymoussalmon1 surveyed his fellow Redditors for the best comebacks that can be used at almost any time by asking :
"What are the best comebacks you know to any kind of insults?"
"I'll show you where you can put that..."
"I learned this in third grade:"
"If someone sticks their tongue out at you, say, 'No thanks...I use toilet paper'."
"They will never do it again. Works with ALL ages."- Sandpaper_Pants.
Inside joke.
"'OH now I see what people were talking about'."
"And never fill them in."- SprinklesMore8471.
Can I help you?
"If somebody says “'what are you looking at?', I respond with “'I’m asking myself the same thing'.”- MochaManBearPig.
That the best you've got?
"I’ve been called worse by better."- UltraaMilds.
"That might be hurtful if anyone gave a sh*t what you think."- PowerStacheOfTheYear.
Some people...
"'I envy the people who've never met you'."-Back2Bach.
What was that?
"I’m sorry I wasn’t listening."- LurkysGoCart.
Melissa Villasenor Oops GIF by Saturday Night LiveGiphyA comeback for a comeback.
"Not reeeeally an insult, but if someone says 'thats what she said!' I reply with a solid 'yeah, not to you.' "
"Never fails to amuse."- legitttz.
Daddy Issues.
"When somebody says, 'Do you know who my father is?' just reply, “why? Your mom didn’t tell you?'”- Doctor-Dragonborn.
Judge and be judged.
"'What people say about you was indeed the truth!'"
"Even if it's fake, it will eat anyone from inside thinking how they're being judged."- TunakYourLastTun.
Perhaps the most effective and efficient comeback seemed to escape the Reddit community.
Which is to simply walk away, and take the high road.
Then again, a good comeback should never be put to waste.
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"Hotel staff of Reddit, what’s the most NSFW moment you witnessed at your hotel?"
Thrills On Ice
"I worked at a hotel in a resort town in Europe."
"One of the maids called me to a room for help because it has been the location of an extremely messy sex party from the touring ice show."
"There were used condoms thrown everywhere, and half the furniture was busted."
"The poor maid was in tears, thinking she'd have to clean it."
"The hotel management called in a professional cleaning company who wore disposable suits, respirators, and eye protection."
"They got rid of most of the stuff in the room and charged a fortune to the ice show."- Abba_Fiskbullar
Get A Room! Oh, Yeah...
"I work overnights in a relatively small hotel, and at least 6/7 days a week, I hear people banging loud as hell in their rooms."
"Half the rooms have a balcony that overlooks the lobby, and those doors aren't soundproof at all."
"We had a man sleepwalk out of his room to the lobby, bucka** nude."
"We had a woman show up in the lobby in her underwear."-
Now That Takes Effort
"Night Auditor here, I've seen a LOT."
"Multiple times I've had guests come to my desk completely naked because somehow they locked themselves out.... naked... this one always confuses me."
"But probably the most NSFW was a guest who had gotten violently ill."
"We're talking projectile vomit on EVERY surface of the room, blood all over, feces, pee... everything was just destroyed..."
"Obvious call to paramedics, but I can never unsee it."- thefuzzmuffin
Vomit Reaction GIF by MOODMANGiphyAmazing He Wasn't Hurt...
"I was a night shift security guard for a motel right next to the biggest casino in my state."
"It was common for addicts to hang out around the property."
"One time, this guy staying in a room did a lil too much and had a freak out."
"He was running around the walkways naked."
"I had to ward him away from peoples rooms so they wouldn’t be disturbed."
"He ended up jumping off the second story balcony and splatting on the pavement."
"He scampered up and hauled a** across the street into a car dealership."
"Not my problem anymore."- Carniverousphinctr
Will Someone Think Of The Children?!?!
"Sex party in the hot tub while children were playing in the indoor pool steps away."
"I had to break that up and throw them out."
"And deal with the numerous lengthy yet justified complaints about it."- mbgal1977
When Wigs And Disguises Won't Cut It...
"Many years ago worked at a very nice casino resort as a valet."
"Regular pulled up in his nice BMW and went to help."
"Wrote up his ticket got his keys and offered to help load up his luggage on a bell cart while we waited for a bellman."
"Opened the trunk and went to lift the suitcase and I about threw my back out."
"I wasn’t prepared for it to be so heavy."
"Gave it another go and heaved it onto the bell cart and heard a sound."
“'Mr, did your suitcase just make an oof sound…?'”
"Long story short a sex worker who was banned from the property was stowed away in there to get up to his room."- thatryanguy1
Why Stop When The Getting Is Good?
"When I was young and worked at a hotel, I was delivering a room service meal and when I got there, the door was closed but had been left just shy of being latched."
'I knocked and the guest yelled 'come in'."
"I pushed it open with the cart, walked in and he was standing there with a big grin on his face watching my reaction as I wheeled in the cart, butt naked with a woman, also naked."
"He smiled and reached out and handed me a $20 he had in his hand and said to just leave it there and close the door on the way out."
"I guess part of their kink was to show off and see my reaction."
"I was shocked, but never said anything to anyone at work."- TXjoedog
NSFW? More Like Safety Hazard!
"The most NSFW thing that I recall was the manager getting on a cleaning kick and accidentally mixing the wrong chemicals in the pool area."
"A toxic gas started to form and the whole hotel had to be evacuated at like 5 AM."- DtotheJtotheH
What Haven't They Seen?
"I did security for a hotel for a number of years."
"I've seen naked guests locked out of their rooms, wedding parties break into the pool area and jump in fully clothed."
"Had a drunk woman climb out her 3rd-floor window and chill on the roof just below."- silverwarbler
Storefront?
"Best friend was GM I was manager."
"He found over the years 4 guns, 5 lbs of weed (at once)."
"The amount of guns is what surprises me."
"Only one out of the four guns found over the years was reported stolen."- Drewpacabra
So Many Questions...
"I wasn't working at this hotel and was just a guest, but I wish I had asked the staff for the backstory."
"I'm checking into my hotel in Los Angeles and was given my keycard."
"Head to the room, open the door, and there's a naked buff dude standing next to the bed just staring at me."
"He says nothing."
"I apologize and quickly leave, assuming somehow I'd gotten the wrong room."
"I go back to the front desk and say, 'I'm sorry, but I think you gave me the wrong room. There's a naked man already in there'."
"The worker at the front desk says, 'Sh*t, not again'."
"He pulls out his walkie talkie and says, 'Security? He's back again'."
"They assigned me to a different room and I was on my way."- telarium
How I Met Your Mother Comedy GIF by LaffGiphyWhat hotel guests do within the privacy of their own room is their business and no one else's.
Even so, it couldn't hurt for them to remember to lock their doors.
"People of Reddit, what is the dumbest reason your (ex) partner gave for cheating?"
So Much For "Till Death do Us Part".
"'You are dying! Do you really want me alone when you are dead?'"
"I was fighting cancer."
"He also told me that I was disgusting and he felt gross touching me."
"Luckily, both types of cancer are out of my life."- Mr_BigDuck
You Could Have At Least Left A Message!
"'You didn't answer your phone, was I supposed to spend Saturday night alone?'"
"I was at work, and so were you, we worked together you f*cking moron."- sixesand7s
Love At First Sight... Or Not
"She met someone that she immediately saw herself marrying."
"A month after we broke up she moved across the country, got married, called me to tell me she made a mistake, got divorced, moved back home, got pregnant and then got married again."- Zarrush
Gonna Have To Do Better Than That...
"Her response once I caught her was that she was flat-out horny."
"But after I said that’s why you have a boyfriend it was kinda funny how she went dead silent."- PuzzleheadedFarm7417
Um...
"He said that he cheated on me because I wanted to have too much sex."
"More than 5 years later I still can't find any logic in that."- Etrixie
So Much For Commitment
"'It's not like we're married'."
"Apparently I can't expect respect from someone who goes from calling me 'love of my life' to blowing her high school shag toy when he comes back to town."- FortGeek
Cartoons Button GIF by NickelodeonGiphyIt Never Is...
“'It’s not what you think it is!'”
"After I walked in on them making out."
"While she was on his lap."
"Both without shirts."- MrSirChris
Two Whole Weeks...
"I couldn't have sex for two weeks so I could recover from surgery so she thought it wasn't cheating'."- Henchforhire
What The Actual...
"My ex-girlfriend said I forgot you were alive."
"For details, I wasn't in the military, I was at university."- Ali8ly
scared star wars GIF by Hyper RPGGiphyThat Only Makes It Worse
"It was his kid's mom so it didn't count."- kittenxx96
"In Sickness And In Health"...Oops!
“'I have needs for sex you aren’t helping me with!'"
"Said to me the day I get home from spending a week in the hospital with kidney failure (lupus)."- EndlesslyUnfinished
We Can Only "Open" Our Hearts So Much...
"Well, I know this guy that was convinced he was in an open relationship, except he forgot to let his girlfriend know.."
"She found out 7 years into the 'open relationship'."
"With multiple women, in 4 continents."
"Oh he also had a book where he'd categorize them."- ProfessionalSpite866
Episode 2 Player GIF by ABC NetworkGiphySanta? SANTA?!?!
"My serial cheater ex-once told me while in a fit of tears."
"'I can't stop cheating, I just have so many issues, my mom lied about Santa when I was a kid and it really f*cked me up'."
"'I don't think I can trust people because of it so I cheat'."- pastelflorist
No One Likes To Be Treated Like A Piece Of Meat...
“It’s like if you order the same subway sandwich for a year, eventually you’re gonna get bored of it."
"But you try another flavor and when you go back to the original one it’s better than you remembered'.”
"Felt not so good being compared to a 6 inch BLT tbh."- NucularOrchid
Oh, nothing, except commitment and fidelity...
"'She was prettier than you, what did you expect?'"
"We were engaged and had been dating for 3 years."- kathjoy
No doubt all these poor people are grateful for dodging the bullet that staying with these people would have been.
Even if it can't quite make up for the pain and embarrassment these experiences brought them.
Redditor InsertBurnsHere wanted to discuss the world's most unresolved issues, so they asked:
"What is the biggest unsolved mystery in human history?"
The mysteries that haunt me are all murder stories.
When will we find the killers?!
The Absconded
Bank Robbery Heist GIF by ADWEEKGiphy"Who was behind the Gardner Museum heist? Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of art was taken, and we have little to no clue who was behind it, and none of the paintings have surfaced."
Stillwater215
The Linear Truth
"In 1893, British archaeologist Sir Arthur Evans purchased some ancient stones with mysterious inscriptions on them at a flea market in Athens. On a later trip to the excavations at Knossos on the island of Crete, he recognized one of the symbols from his stones and began a study of the engraved tablets being uncovered at various sites on the island."
"He discovered two different systems, which he called Linear A and Linear B. While Linear B was deciphered in the early 1950s (it turned out to represent an early form of Greek), Linear A, above, has still not been deciphered."
"There is an entire culture of information that predates much of our history, a window into ancient humanity that is simply locked away from us because we don't know how to read it."
Atamask
Exact Dates
"An active one in the archaeology world is the exact time frame of when humans made it to the Americas. The date keeps getting pushed back with more controversial discoveries that then just turn to evidence as they pile up. It’s a fascinating story to see unfold."
DocAuch22
"Yeah I like this one too, I think many of the traces of early settlement are likely submerged. Sea levels were much lower during the ice age and the majority of human settlements are along the coasts so a huge piece of our history is probably lying on the seafloor completely undisturbed and possibly well preserved."
who519
Monarchs
"So the Monarch Butterfly migrates to Mexico and back every year. During the year there are a full 4 generations of butterflies that live and die during the journey. Upon returning back from Mexico, the butterfly manages to find the same trees it's relative started out at despite never having been there."
MasonS98
Dark Energy
Loop Space GIF by xponentialdesignGiphy"We like to think we understand the universe and that physics is a well grounded discipline, and in some ways it is. However we have no idea what dark matter or dark energy is and yet we think it makes up 27% and 68% of the universe respectively."
Ok_Passenger_4202
The Universe is vast and scary, like the sea.
The End
Kimmy Schmidt Netflix GIF by Unbreakable Kimmy SchmidtGiphy"The final words of the emperor Titus were 'I have but one regret'. We don't know and never will what that regret was."
Ayearinbooks
5000 BCE
"That most of human history is undocumented and we will never know our entire history as a species. We didn’t start recording our history until 5000 BCE, we do know we shifted to agrarian societies around 10,000 BCE but beyond that we have no idea what we were like as a species, we will never know the undocumented parts of our history that spans 10s of thousands of years."
"We are often baffled by the technological progress of our ancient ancestors, like those in SE Asia who must have been masters of the sea to have colonized the variety of islands there and sailed vast stretches of ocean to land on Australia and New Zealand."
"What is ironic is we currently have an immense amount of information about our world today and the limited documented history of our early days as a species but that is only a small fraction of our entire history."
patlaff91
How Big?
"I don't know about 'biggest,' but I always thought the Voynich Manuscript was very interesting. A huge book written in an unknown language or cipher that has never been translated or decoded with diagrams of plant species that don't exist. Lots of theories surrounding it, but no definitive answers as to the origins or the content."
AbortionSurvivor777
Who made it?
"Not sure if it's THE biggest mystery. But the Antikythera mechanism is pretty wild."
"Dated to at least 60BC, possibly as old as 200BC, it's as complex as clockworks that didn't show up until the 1400s, over a millennium later!"
"It's just such a strange technological anomaly. Who made it? What else did they make and why haven't we found more stuff as advanced?"
SmokedMessias
Magic Tins
Video Recycle GIF by Jenny LorenzoGiphy"Why did we all just globally decide that those blue Dutch cookie tins hold sewing supplies?"
MysteriousStaff3388
"They’re large enough to hold sewing scissors, along with other notions, and made of metal so that the scissors and needles can’t poke through them. Or at least that’s the consensus r/sewing seems to have come to."
butter_milk
My grandma had like 20 of those tins.
Good times.
Do you have any mysteries to add? Let us know in the comments below.