(My family is playing a fast-paced game where you need to get another person to guess a word or phrase. My uncle is trying to get my dad to guess a phrase.)

Uncle: “What Joseph’s father gave to him.”

Dad: “A coat.”

Uncle: “Yeah, but if he were an octopus.”

Dad: “A coat of arms!”

Uncle: “Yes, that’s it!”

Years ago, my husband’s uncle was shopping for lingerie for his wife. Unfortunately, he really did not know anything about bra sizes, let alone what size his wife wore.

When the saleswoman asked about size, [Uncle] doffed his hat, looked around, and said, “Seven and a half.”

(I am in a group chat with my aunt who resides in Australia with her family, my mum, and my grandmother, who used to be a nurse back in the day. We are all close and have a great sense of humour. All this happens over text. My aunt has just told us her two sons are sick with Influenza B, and recounted an amusing story, during which her younger son was acting up due to his sickness, and his older brother whispered, “So much drama.” )

Grandma: “I would love to have been there to witness all that!”

Mum: “I’m bleeding to death. My period is so heavy. Do you want to witness that, too, Mum?!”

Grandma: “You think I’m crazy?!”

Mum: “Why are you playing favourites? Why is drama cute when [Aunt’s Youngest Son] does it, but not me?”

Grandma: “Because one is a kid, and one is a matured lady, I hope!”

Mum: “I’m still bleeding to death, just in case you decide to care!”

(As this is going on, I’m quickly searching up some information online and find what I need.)

Me: “You’re losing five pints of blood?”

Mum: *eye roll emoticon* “Maybe four.”

Me: “You mean 1892 ml of blood? When the average heavy flow is 65 ml?”

Mum: “Yup.”

Me: “Twenty times more than the normal ‘unusually heavy’ flow?”

Grandma: “Just drink lots of fluid to maintain the body volume.”

Mum: *sighs* “Don’t see you telling [Aunt’s Youngest Son] to drink lots of fluids!”

Me: *copying a comment from earlier in the chat* “‘Hope the boys get well soon. Make sure they drink enough.’ Actually, she did.”

Grandma: “Ignore your sister, [Aunt]. She’s just being silly.”

Mum: “Dying is not being silly!”

Grandma: “Yes, it is, when it’s merely lip service.”

(My family is at my grandmother’s house for Thanksgiving. My uncle opens the freezer to get something, and finds a hot pad underneath a container of ice cream.)

Uncle: “What’s this?”

Grandmother: “It’s a hot pad.”

Uncle: “What’s it doing in the freezer?”

Grandmother: “Since it keeps the table from getting burned when you put hot things down on it, I keep it in the freezer so the ice cream won’t get freezer-burned.”

(My mother looked at my uncle and me with a death glare, and under her breath said, “Don’t you dare say a word”.)

(My aunt has always been a pretty terrible person, and my interactions with her have been for the sole sake of keeping the peace, because my grandmother loves her, even more than her other two daughters. One year, my aunt goes on one of her crazy sprees during her pretty nasty divorce and ends up accusing everyone in the family of siding with her husband while she “did no wrong” – they were divorcing because he learned she was cheating on him with her diving instructor – and kicks several people off her Facebook page, including me. I have blocked her for good measure and gone about my business. One day, about three years later, I receive a friend request from my aunt. She has deleted her old page and made a new one, and is trying to add most of the people she had kicked off the old one. I ignore it, and block this page, too. The next day, I am at home with my grandmother, who I live with at the time to take care of her, and my aunt is there.)

Aunt: “Oh! [My Name]! There you are! I need to talk to you!”

Me: “What about?”

Aunt: *acting offended* “I sent you a friend’s request on Facebook last night, and you ignored it! How am I supposed to keep in contact with you? That hurt me so badly!”

Grandmother: “[My Name], add her on Facebook! You are being rude!”

Me: “But I have you on Facebook, [Aunt]. I mean, unless you kicked me off, I’m still there; I would never do something that rude. I figured it was a spoof account trying to get personal information or something.”

(She never bothered me about adding her as a friend again.)