(I’m sitting with one of my friends during dinner. The conversation rolls around to her sister, with whom my friend is in the middle of a — several years long by now — prank war.)

Friend: “So, I need ideas on how to pay back that little b****. Got anything?”

Me: “You mentioned that your house had a suit of armour, right?”

Friend: “Yeah, that piece of junk my dad found in a thrift store.”

Me: “How about you put on that suit of armour, wait until your sister wakes up in the morning, and then jumpscare her.”

Friend: *homicidal joker grin on face* “Ooh, I like the sound of that. Problem: I’m not sure it’s even wearable. And it’s covered with dust and cobwebs.”

Me: “Can you try to get your father to put it on? Say that you’re curious if it can actually be worn and talk him around into wearing it. That way you can both confirm if it can be worn and how to put it on.”

Friend: “Oh, that’s a good idea. Two birds with one stone.”

Me: “Better, I imagine that your father would not want to wear something that is filled with spiders, so he’ll probably clean it first, which means that you won’t have to wear a dusty old suit.”

Friend: *excitedly* “And I can video him doing it. If he gets stuck inside it’ll be a big hit on [Video Site]! Five birds with one stone. Man, you’re a genius.”

Me: “I prefer ‘devious mastermind,’ but anyway, that still leaves the million-dollar question: will your father wear the suit of armour?”

Friend: “Yeah, I can convince him to do that. He’s quite the nut job. Once, my uncle and I managed to convince him into dancing naked on the abandoned railway bridge near our farm.”

Me: *OMGWTF face* “What?”

Friend: “Yeah, a rain dance to piss off the sky. We videoed it. Getting him to put a suit of armour on will be easy. Oh, I can’t wait for the weekend. This is going to be so fun!”

Me: “Show me the video of your dad in the armour at some point. And good luck with the prank.”

(My brother has always had a way of getting people to their breaking points of frustration and anger with little to no effort. I don’t remember what this argument was about since it was so many years ago, and my dad was always the “talk things out” parent, so the fact he confided in me years later that he’d been uncomfortably close to pulling over and hitting my brother meant he was SERIOUSLY at his limit.

I’m in the car with my brother and my dad and they’ve been arguing. I’ve never seen my dad so mad before or since. There’s been a tense silence in the few minutes after their argument when my brother decides there’s a very important and unrelated question he needs answered.)

Brother: *as if he hadn’t just been arguing with my father* “Hey, Dad? What’s the biggest dog you know of?”

Dad: *in the angriest tone I’ve ever heard him use* “A SAINT F****** BERNARD.”

(Dad, I very sincerely love how, even at the angriest I’ve ever seen you, you still took the time to sincerely answer your son.)

(My little sister has a sleepover birthday party. We use an Echo Dot to play music for the party. It’s quite early the morning after and all of them stayed up until four in the morning before finally the last one passed out.)

Mom: “Can you go down to the basement and wake them all up for breakfast, please?”

Me: “Oh, sure.”

(I walk downstairs where all of them except for one are still asleep and I walk over to the Echo Dot still sitting on the table. The volume is still up quite loud from last night.)

Me: “Alexa, play ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ by Bring Me the Horizon.”

Alexa: “Got it! Playing ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ by Bring Me the Horizon.”

(I got yelled at by my mom, but it admittedly woke them all up pretty fast.)

(When my brother is little, we call him Grins because he always has a huge one on. All the time! One day, we go to the pool and get in. He doesn’t know how to swim yet so I am tasked with carting him around the pool.)

Me: “Now, Grins, make sure you don’t grin because the water will go into your mouth and make you choke! Lips closed!”

Brother: “What, I can’t be happy?”

Me: “You can, but… just smile with your mouth closed! Okay?”

(He didn’t and started sputtering. After a while, he decided to go down the water slide without telling anyone… with a big fat grin on, of course! I swam up to him and caught him before he drowned. And yes, he did eventually learn to swim, but he didn’t like swimming anymore. I still don’t know why he just couldn’t keep his mouth closed.)

Growing up, I managed to name most of the cats my family owned, for one reason or another. My favorite by far, though, had to be my brother’s cat.

When we were going through the process of naming her, we managed to narrow our options down to two choices: Socks, my brother’s suggestion, and Feet, mine. Both were in reference to her white paws, as compared to her grey body.

To keep my brother and me from arguing about it, my dad had us agree to sleep on it. That night, the household awoke to my brother screaming and cursing in his room. The reason? His cat had apparently peed on his feet while he was sleeping.

I, being the five-year-old I was, told him that she decided her name for us. I wasn’t exactly wrong.