The French have this phrase, l'esprit d'escalier. Literally, it translates as "the spirit of the staircase" but what it actually means is the things you think of to say after it’s already too late and you’re on your way out.

The spirit of the staircase was with me the whole walk home as I thought of better comebacks I should have said to him when we had that argument.

Spirit of the Staircase by Winnie Y November 5, 2006

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spiral staircase

(n.) a staircase that spirals round, with turning steps.

Idiom to describe a situation where the next step is not always clear, and a large amount of training in doing this is required.

This project has become something of a spiral staircase.

spiral staircase by Kung-Fu Jesus May 5, 2004

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peril of a wax staircase

a conversation pattern in which the discourse appears to follow the laws of logic and reason, but, in fact, upon close examination of, or prolonged participation in...you get stuck like you do when you try to walk up a melting wax staircase.
often occurs when parties involved in conversation attempt to be more clever or witty than they actually are.

inspired by the melting wax staircase sequence in the "House of Wax" remake

after a 20 minute discussion about writing a play that would serve as an analogy for our current situation (in which we were unable to score some mushrooms), the metaphor was over-extended, and we found ourselves faced with the peril of a wax staircase

peril of a wax staircase by Shenan Hahn and Dan Prestwich April 20, 2006

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