(I am very pale and have brown hair, which I dye black. My boyfriend is quite obviously Hispanic. My four-year-old sisters, who are also very pale but have red hair, wanted to come with us to the store. A customer in the store comes up to us.)

Customer: “Oh, they’re so cute! But where did they get the red hair?”

Me: “From my mom. They’re not ours; they’re my sisters.”

(The customer leaves and my boyfriend turns to me.)

Boyfriend: “D***, I was going to glare at you suspiciously and say ‘I’ve been wondering that myself.'”

(I am eight, and my brother is five.)

Me: “If I break three eggs over your head, I’ll give you $20.”

(My little brother runs to our folks to have them witness it, and I repeat my offer. We go out to the driveway. He is wearing swim trunks in the winter, shivering, with a towel around his shoulders. My folks watch curiously from the porch. They knew I don’t have $20, but aren’t quite sure what is going on. With a satisfying splat, I smash the first egg on my brother’s head. He’s grinning, because he’s going to get $20. Yolk and goo are running down his face, but he doesn’t care. I take the second egg and it explodes on his head. I make sure to rub in the shell bits nicely. He’s still grinning, because he’s almost got his $20. I take the third egg, and… walk away.)

Brother: “HEY! Where are you going?”

Me: “If I break the third one, I have to give you $20!”

(He stands there slack jawed, but, to his credit, he doesn’t throw a fit, cry, or get horribly upset. Fast forward a decade. My folks have sent me on a town-wide scavenger hunt for my high school graduation present. I’m on the last clue, and it’s at the bottom of a neighbor’s pool. Unheated. In May. It’s ice water. I strip down and dive in. I see a milk jug full of sand on the bottom of the pool, with a key of some sort tied to the handle with ribbon. I grab the jug, and head up the side of the pool. As I come out of the water, I see my brother. He is standing on the edge of the pool, grinning. In one of his hands is the key to my ’72 BMW 2002. In the other? Three eggs. Yeah, he got his revenge. I still owe him one egg…)

(My boyfriend and I are very big comic book geeks. I am sitting on my computer, and my five-year-old daughter is playing with my Thor doll.)

Kid: “Thor, Thor, Thor!”

Me: “Hey, is Thor up all night to get Loki?”

Kid: “Uh… yes!”

(I’m visiting my mom and my brothers at their house when I find a large bowl with a towel and an egg in it. I decide to inquire about it.)

Me: “What’s with this egg?”

Mom: “I don’t know, I just found it sitting like that on the floor. Probably something that [Five-Year-Old Brother] is doing.”

Me: “Huh.”

(Since it’s a real egg, I decide I should probably put it away so it doesn’t end up smashed. As I’m walking through the house with the bowl and egg, my brother stops me.)

Brother: “Hey! That’s my egg!”

Me: “Oh, it’s yours?”

Brother: “Yeah!”

Me: “What are you doing with it?”

Brother: “It’s hatching!”

Me: “I see.”

(I call into the other room.)

Me: “Mom, it’s hatching.”

Mom: “Where did it come from?”

Me: *to Brother* “Did you get this from the kitchen? Inside the fridge?”

Brother: “Yeah. It’s gonna be a chicken!”

Me: “Alright. I’ll put it back in the other room then.”

(A few days later I make a trip to the craft store and find a fake egg. I figure I could switch it with the real egg, to remove the chance of the egg being smashed. I bring it over to my mom’s. My brother isn’t home.)

Me: “I got [Brother] an egg so that other one doesn’t get smashed.”

Mom: “Oh good. But how are you going to get it to hatch?”

Me: “The other one wasn’t going to hatch either!”

Mom: “True. I really don’t know what we’re going to do.”

(The eggs have been switched. My mom’s now looking for a way to get a real fertilized chicken egg so my brother can actually watch it hatch. We don’t want to disappoint him!)

(I have just got home to find my wife, son, and daughter all in the front room. I can tell something is up.)

Wife: “[Daughter] got sent home from school today.”

(My daughter isn’t exactly a trouble maker, so I’m surprised. My son snorts with laughter.)

Me: “Why?!”

(My son snorts again.)

Daughter: “I was swimming in PE. And a well known trouble maker pulled down some small defenseless kid’s trunks down in front of everybody.”

Me: “And…?”

Daughter: “So I—”

(My son, cracking up laughing, can’t contain himself.)

Son: “SO SHE PUNCHED HIM IN THE CROTCH AND YELLED, ‘NOW EVERYONE’S STARING AT YOUR D***, JERK!'”