(My little brother doesn’t want to go to bed.)

Mom: “Time for bed!”

Brother: “You’re not my dad! You can’t tell me what to do!”

Dad: “I am your dad and I say go to bed!”

Brother: “Yeah… but you aren’t Mario. I only take orders from Mario.”

(My family is full of nerds, so we have a Mario hat. I happen to know where it is. I run to get it, put it on, and come back.)

Me: “IT’S A-MEEE!”

Brother: *sighs dramatically and walks out of the room*

(My 94-year-old grandmother is totally deaf in her left ear, and has normal age-related hearing loss in the other. She wears a hearing aid on the right side only, and talking to her left ear is totally useless; she won’t hear you. Those of the family who have met her know this, and we are conscious of which side of her we sit on if we want to talk to her. My cousin’s wedding has people who know who my grandmother is, but I guess did not know the specifics. This takes place in the after party. My sister and I are sitting at the table, watching over our grandmother. A guy who I don’t know, but who knows my grandmother’s name, sits down next to my her, on her left side.)

Guy: “Hi, [Grandmother]! Enjoying the party?”

Grandmother: *looking somewhere else, doesn’t even notice the guy*

Me: “You’re on her bad side.”

Guy: *totally flattering and missing the message* “No, she doesn’t have a bad side.”

Sister: “You’re on her DEAF side. She can’t hear you.”

Guy: “…oh.” *gets up and leaves, not even trying*

(My grandmother never noticed. There was just too much ambient noise and people moving to-and-fro. I think if the guy had put a hand on her shoulder or something, she would have noticed and would happily have tried to talk to him.)

(I’m playing with my two-year-old son when the following exchange happens.)

Son: “I want to play with the toilet brush!”

Me: “No! Yucky!”

Son: “The toilet brush! The toilet brush!”

Me: “I can’t let you. You can get sick.”

(Son runs to the main bedroom, which has an en-suite bathroom. I chase after him. My wife is in the bedroom.)

Wife: “Hey, what are you looking for?”

Son: “The toilet brush!”

Wife: “The story blocks? Sure, here they are!”

(Son happily walks out of the bedroom with his box of story blocks. I still don’t understand how I got what he said so wrong!)

(I am really sick when we go on a family vacation to Paris but I want to push it down and go to the Louvre. After walking all over the Louvre for the day I am exhausted but finally we make it to a sign advertising the Mona Lisa down the mile-long hallway. This happens when we got out of the gallery.)

Dad & Sister #1: “We just looked at the other paintings; they were beautiful!”

Mom & Sister #2: “We only got to see the Mona Lisa for a second before another couple shoved us out of the way, but we still got pictures!”

All of Them: “What did you do, [My Name]?”

Me: *blinking blearily* “Well, first I sat on the bench at the front of the gallery and then, I’m pretty sure I fell asleep for half an hour.”

(I’m in the car with my mom. She’s talking to my dad and they are talking about taking the dog to the groomers.)

Mom: “We need to take the dog to the groomers every twelve weeks.”

Me: “So every three months.”

Mom: “No, four.”

Me: “How many weeks are in a month?”

Mom: “Four.”

Me: “What’s three times four?”

Mom: “Twelve… Oh, be quiet.”