My brother owns a house that he can’t live in due to health issues. There’s nothing wrong with the house; he just can’t live on his own, so he has moved in with our parents. He is not comfortable with renting the house out, fully intending on moving back one day, but on finding out that a cousin is moving to our area for a six-month contract, he offers the house to him to stay in.

We have other cousins who would take advantage of this sort of thing and would hound my brother mercilessly to provide them with the house, so this needs to be kept secret. Apart from my parents, uncle, and cousin, of course, I am the only other person told about the arrangement.

Brother: “[Cousin] moved into the house last week.”

Me: “That’s great. I might call around to say hello next week.”

Brother: “No, you can’t do that.”

Me: “Why not?”

Brother: “I don’t want anyone to know he’s there.”

Me: “Yeah, I know that. I’m not going to tell anyone.”

Brother: “I know you wouldn’t. I can trust you. But what if someone finds out?”

Me: “Who’s going to find out? [Cousin]? Who’s he going to tell? Himself? I think he already knows that he’s living there.”

Brother: *Confused* “What?”

I raise my eyebrows, waiting for it to click. When it does, he starts laughing.

Brother: “Oh, yeah, I forgot that.”

My hobby is sewing. I love it so much that I have taken a full dressmaking course. My elder sister decided that she would get our grandmother to teach her. My sister is the type of person who always thinks they know everything. She is showing me some T-shirts she has made for her daughters. I notice a problem with some shoddy work and ask if our grandmother taught her to do it that way; she was a professional seamstress so she should have known the correct way.

Me: “Did Nanna tell you to do it like that?”

Sister: “No, she showed me how to do it [the correct way], but I decided that she was wrong so did it the way I knew was right.”

Me: “Well, you were wrong and Nanna was right. Have you made anything for [Nephew]?”

Sister: “No, boys’ clothes are too hard to make.”

Me: “No, they’re not. You can even use the same pattern for the T-shirt; just change the colour for a boy. He’s going to feel left out if you don’t.”

Sister: “Everyone knows that boys’ clothes are too hard. Anyway, he’s never going to notice.”

The next day, my five-year-old nephew gets up in front of his class to recite some news about himself.

Nephew: “My mum does sewing. She makes stuff for [Elder Sister], she makes stuff for [Younger Sister], but she don’t make nothing for me”

I felt sorry for him so I made him a T-shirt and shorts set.

This takes place when my sisters and I are children. We are on a family road trip, with the three of us stuck in the backseat. We are all close in age — there are less than three years between me and my youngest sister, and I’m the oldest — and we end up, as siblings who are close in age AND close in physical proximity are wont to do, arguing and fighting with one another.

My parents are getting quite fed up with this, and after repeatedly telling us to knock it off, my dad finally loses his cool.

Dad: “That’s enough! What would you do if one of you was to die?!“

Youngest Sister: *Wide-eyed* “I’d cry!”

Middle Sister: “I’d cry, too!”

I look back and forth between my two sisters.

Me: “Well, then, I guess I’d be the dead one.”

My mum, sister, and I have a cat. The cat gets fed every evening. Both my mum and my sister are out for the evening — separately — so I feed the cat. Then, I go upstairs into my room to play some video games.

An hour or so later, I hear my mum come home, and an hour after that, my sister. Suddenly, my sister storms upstairs and angrily asks why nobody has fed the cat yet.

Me: “I fed the cat!”

Mum: “Oh, so did I!”

Sister: “Oh, I did, too!”

It turns out that the cat had gobbled up her first portion and licked her bowl clean, and was so convincing in begging for more that my mum had assumed she hadn’t eaten yet and fed her, and then the cat did the same spiel with my sister! Since then, we always texted one another when the cat had been fed until my sister and I moved out.

This took place before I was born, back in Ye Olde 1980s when people had landlines with multiple receivers around the house. My brother and sister were very young at the time — five and three, I believe — and they were playing around upstairs.

Meanwhile, my parents were downstairs, and they decided to order a pizza. My dad picked up the phone and called the pizza place, but they were busy and placed him on hold. While he was waiting, my brother picked up the phone upstairs and pretended to order a pizza, blissfully unaware that anyone was actually on the line. Then, he hung up the phone and continued playing with my sister.

Once the pizza place finally took my dad off hold to take his order, Dad ordered the exact same pizza my brother had requested. He went to the store to pick it up, came back home, and called out:

Dad: “[Brother], the pizza you ordered is here!”

I’m told that my brother’s expression was quite comical.