(My mum and I have a habit of buying clothes for each other if we see them reduced in the shops, as neither of us have much time or money. I’ve just bought her something that was reduced from £22 to £5.)

Mum: “Are you sure it was only £5? You didn’t actually pay £22, did you?”

Me: “What would you do if it actually was £22?”

Mum: “Take it back for the money!”

(My six-year-old step-daughter is at the table eating her meal with the rest of us.)

Step-Daughter: “When I’m a teenager, you’re going to be dead.”

(She carries on eating nonchalantly. When asked to elaborate, she did mean from old age!)

(Some of my family will leave lights on before they leave for work, wasting electricity. I try to remind them to turn off lights. My brother is about to leave one morning, and starts shouting from the front door.)

Brother: “Sorry, I left some of the lights on! I don’t have time!”

Me: “Wait, what? But you’re still in the hou—”

(The door slams.)

Me: “…what?”

Sister: “Dude. Did he seriously just say, from inside the house, that he couldn’t take ten seconds to turn off the downstairs lights?”

(My brother and I are about 15 and 14 respectively.)

Brother: “Wouldn’t it be great if swimming pools were waterproof?”

Me: “Uh…”

Brother: “What? No water could damage it then!”

Me: “Think about it…”

(My brother then sits still for about two minutes, whilst he thinks it over. All of a sudden his face falls.)

Brother: “Yeah, that’d be bad; wouldn’t it?”

(My family of two younger sisters, our father, and I, have just sat down to dinner.)

Dad: “Hey, can you pass the couscous?”

Me: “You know, if this were made with a large waterfowl, it would be called goose-cous.”

Dad: “Or if it were liquid, it could be juice-cous.”

Me: “Or if it was made with coniferous trees, it would be spruce-cous.”

Dad: “In Canada, they’d have moose-cous.”

(By now both little sisters are rolling their eyes, but we keep going.)

Me: “Trains could have caboose-cous.”

Dad: “Batman has Bruce-cous.”

Me: “If you ate it while tied at tennis it would be deuce-cous.”

Dad: “If you hung it from a rope it would be noose-cous.”

Me: “If you added cocaine, you could call it substance abuse-cous.”

Dad: “If you put it in a channel that conducts water, it would be sluice-cous.”

Me: “The Greek gods had Zeus-cous!”

Dad: “Theodor Geisel eats Seuss-cous!”

Little Sister: “You guys have a few screws loose.”