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Some say you should never let an insult go unanswered. Instead, they advise you to wait for the perfect opportunity and then strike back. I'm afraid it doesn't work that way. If you can't counterattack immediately to dismiss the insult and the insulter, you've lost.

I first understood this when I was 12, and heard some comedians on the radio having a scripted argument:

First comic: "Did you get your brains from an idiot?"

Second comic: "Why, do you want them back?"

I thought that was the funniest thing I had ever heard, and I fervently hoped my archenemy in 7th grade, Lenny the Bully, would ask me in front of the class, including pretty Joanie with the red hair, whether I had gotten my brains from an idiot. Then I could mow him down with, "Why, do you want them back?" This would be followed by group laughter, Lenny slinking to his seat red-faced and beaten, and Joanie having new (or some) respect for me.

Of course, Lenny never obliged me with the necessary straight-line and I never got to use that instant put-down. But I understood that a response to an insult has to be immediate. It wouldn't do to formulate that wicked retort, then sidle up to Lenny in the schoolyard a couple of days later as we're walking out for recess, and say out of the blue, "Hey Lenny -- remember what you said to me about getting my brains from an idiot? Well, here's my answer -- "Why, do you want them back?" The kids would laugh at me, not him, and I would become the day's No. 1 dodgeball target.

Today, the lack of an instant zinger, or "Perfect Squelch," as the Saturday Evening Post calls them, causes me an unfortunate night of lying in bed staring at the ceiling with "shoulda-saids" running through my wide-awake brain. "I shoulda told her, 'You know, Einstein said everything is relative.' Then she'd know I was no dummy. Or maybe I shoulda told her that Freud said, 'Sometimes a cigar is just a cigar....' Heck, I'm gonna need an Ambien tonight."

You have to be careful, though, that if you do conceive a devastating instant comeback, you don't make the situation worse. That will lead to the "snatch back" reflex, where you fling your arm forward desperately to grab your crystal clear but regrettable words out of the air before they reach the ears of your target, while thinking, "Jeez, did I really say, 'fat cow'?" Or, failing to grab the words, at least swat them down so they smack onto the sidewalk and shatter.

The solution to all this might be to arm yourself with an assortment of ready-made instant comebacks, or at least a one-size-fits-all rejoinder that will serve in any circumstance. This tactic could succeed most easily if the comeback made absolutely no sense in the context of your argument.

Him: "That car you're driving should have been scrapped long ago." You: "Oh, yeah? Well Freud said that sometimes a cigar is just a cigar."

Your attacker won't admit he has no idea whether or not you have bested him, but he'll think the worst. You can drive off, head held high, in your dented Chevy Caprice, circa 1981.

The same kind of comeback issue thrives in a business environment. Say you are in a meeting with your boss and several of your organizational peers, including a later version of a Lenny the Bully. Let's also say that this Lenny has an interest in belittling your department's contribution to the company. In the course of the meeting, Lenny might put you in a bad light by throwing in some obscure statistic about product failures. You know he is wrong, but you don't have the facts with you to support the good work your department is doing.

It is of no value to say, "No way! That's just misleading. I'll bring in the correct numbers next week!" Too late -- the damage has been done. When you bring in the facts the following week, everyone will have forgotten the issue. You can wave your statistics in the air and claim the high ground, but the company has moved on.

Of course, I was never the victim of that sort of office one-upmanship. I, um, read about it in the Harvard Business Review. But I'm still waiting for some corporate Lenny to say to me in a meeting, "Did you get your management skills from an idiot?" Then, boy, do I have an answer for him.

Bernard Jacks is a freelance humor writer who lives in Marlboro. His columns have appeared in the New York Times, Smithsonian Magazine, and other publications.