(I’m sitting at our computer desk with ten bottles of nail polish in various colors and some artificial nails. I’m using a size 0 paintbrush to decorate the nails.)

Sister: “What are you doing?”

Me: “Making these nails look awesome.”

(My sister picks up one of the nails I’ve finished.)

Sister: “Hey, this is Captain America’s shield!”

Me: “Yep, and this one is going to have the Avengers’ emblem on it.”

Sister: *noticing the other nails* “Mjolnir, the Tesseract, and this one looks like the pattern on a black widow’s back!”

Me: “I’ll be doing Hulk’s fist and Ironman’s mask next. Then I’ll have to look up references for Black Panther and Hawkeye’s emblems and decide which of the other Avengers to put on the final nail.”

Sister: “You’ve got to paint me a set of these too!”

Dad: *shaking his head* “You two are such geeks.”

Me: “Admit it. If you were a woman, you’d wear them, too.”

Dad: *opens his mouth to reply, but then stops*

Me: “I’ll take that as a yes.”

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(My brother and I work at the same office, in cubicles bordering each other.)

Brother: “Hey, what size shoes do you wear?”

Me: “Between 12-13 depending on who makes them. Why?”

Brother: “No reason.”

Me: “It worries me when you ask personal questions and don’t say why.”

Brother: “Fine. I was planning on cutting off your feet and attaching metal prosthetics and wanted to make sure I got the sizes right.”

Me: *pause* “…alright.”

(I’m fourteen and up late because I’m finishing an assignment for school the next day. Mum’s watching TV, eating a cheese-stick. She is watching ‘Queer as Folk’. I’m walking up the hallway to get to the kitchen for a drink; it shares a space with the living area.)

Mum:*flails* “No! Stop! You can’t come in here! It’s not suitable!”

Me:“What? Why not?”

(I realise that there’s a lot of grunting and moaning and wet slapping coming from the TV. I wait by bathroom until I get the all clear.)

Mum:*looking comically scandalised* “Okay, you can come in now.”

Me:“How was it?”

Mum:*mournfully, looking down at her snack* “I don’t really know, but it’s put me off my cheese-stick.”

(The first Xbox has just come out. Dad buys it for my sister and me as a Christmas present. It comes with three games, one of them “Halo,” to which Mum promptly becomes addicted. I’m walking to the kitchen to get a drink; the living room is filled with the sound of sporadic assault rifle fire.)

Me: “Hey, Mum.”

Mum: “Mmm.”

(She is looking very focused. Suddenly, her face lights up.)

Mum: “Yes! I did it!”

Me: “Did what?”

(I go to see what this achievement is.)

Mum: *proudly* “That!”

(She’s painstakingly etched a swear-word on a wall with the assault rifle.)

Me: “Good job, Mum.”

Mum: *cheerfully* “Okay, time to go back to killing things!”

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(We’ve just eaten a large roast meal, and are all lounging around while my mother sorts out some dessert. She comes into the living room and starts talking to my 12-year old brother.)

Mum: “Do you want some apple danish?”

Brother: *looks up* “What flavour is it?”

Mum: “Well, it’s apple danish.”

Brother: “Yeah, but what flavour is it?”

Mum: “Listen to me. It’s apple danish. Apple. Danish.”

Brother: *angrily* “But what flavour is it?”

(My stepdad and I are beside ourselves trying not to laugh at this point.)

Mum: “It’s APPLE danish.”

Brother: “What flavour is it?!”

Mum: yelling “Its blackcurrant!”

Brother: “Oh no, I don’t like that.”

(Later that evening, he saw the left over apple danish and got upset that no one had offered him any.)