How to React When Someone Tells You What They Would Have Done

In my experience, most of the time, when someone says, “Well, if it’d been me, I woulda . . .” they should be saying, “Well, based on the limited information I have, sitting here, safely removed from any consequences, I like to think that in that situation I woulda . . .”

Ninety-nine percent of the time they’re just bragging about what a badass they imagine themselves to be.

One of the few exceptions to this that leaps to mind is a comic I knew a long time ago who was driving stoned, and rear-ended someone on the way to a gig. They guy he rear-ended was cool about it and just exchanged insurance information without calling the cops or mentioning the still-lit joint in the comedian’s ashtray.

Everyone who heard the story agreed that the guy had been very kind. The comedian who rear-ended him agreed, and said if it’d been him who got rear-ended he’d have immediately faked a whiplash injury and threatened to call the cops unless the guy forked over a huge amount of money as quickly as he could get to an ATM.

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