My wife, my sister-in-law, my young son, my young nephew, and I were at an amusement park that’s geared to the younger set. My nephew is nine months older than my son, but they were both about five or six years old. They were about to get on the bumper cars.

There was a big sign about safety so I yelled out to my son, “[Son], no head-on collisions… so just T-bone [Nephew].” My sister-in-law laughed and then scolded me.

I’m ringing up a customer who is buying chocolate bars with his young daughter. She’s probably four years old. He pays and then goes to put the two chocolate bars in his jacket pocket when his daughter stops him.

Daughter:
“Dad! No! Don’t do that! It will make a mess!”

Customer:
“It’s okay. They will be fine”

Daughter:
“Trust me, Dad. I have years of experience with putting chocolate in my pockets!”

My mom has this picture of her dead mother on the wall. My younger brother always asks why she is in the picture, and my mom replies that she died since she was old.

On her dad’s birthday, they are taking out the cake and they start putting on the candles, which say that he’s 85.

Brother:
“Oh, my God! Grandpa, you are so old! You have to go inside the picture and go to God!”

Mom facepalmed.

My husband, our two sons — age 15 and 11 — and I are on our way home one evening. Everyone has been either listening to the music playing or lost in their own thoughts for the last 15 minutes or so, when my oldest sits up straight and leans forward a bit.

Oldest Child:
“My favourite shape of the alphabet is the colour nine.”

There is silence for the next few minutes as we run those words through our heads a few dozen times.

Youngest Child:
“What have you done? You just broke everything.”

(I’m out shopping with my dad for lumber and supplies for a bookshelf he’s helping me build. We’ve already picked out the wood — the only part my dad cares about — so he’s making a complete nuisance of himself now while I try to decide between paint and stain.)

Me: *holding different colors of stain in each hand* “Hmm…”

Dad: “The color will be darker than it looks when you stain it.”

Me: “Yes, thank you.” *puts stain back and reads a bit of the provided guide aloud* “So, I should get this sealant…”

Dad: “Don’t ask me; I don’t know anything about this!”

Me: “I wasn’t asking you! Go away before I hit you with a board! I think I’m just gonna go with paint. It’ll be easier.”

Dad: *now stretching his back on one of the building’s support beams* “Well, hurry up. I need to be somewhere by five.”

Me: “What time is it now?”

Dad: “It’s three o’clock.”

Me: “We’ll be done soon. And if it gets too late, we can just start on this another day.”

Dad: *now grinning* “We have plenty of time. It’s only one.”

(I roll my eyes and snap back before asking an employee about paint. She helpfully offers to try coloring one of the reject paints for me to save some money, and she comes back with the dip sample.)

Me: “Hmm… No, thank you so much for trying, but that’s not dark enough. I need black to match my existing furniture.”

Dad: *leaning over me* “What do you mean? That’s black!”

Me: “No, it’s not; it’s dark gray.”

Dad: “Oh, well, I can’t tell. It looks black to me!”

(I hand the employee a quart of paint I’d picked up earlier to mix for me and thank her again for her trouble — I’m cutting out a lot of back-and-forth here — before turning back to my dad.)

Me: “So you’re color blind and tone blind?”

Dad: *proudly* “And tone deaf!”

Me: “Do any of your senses work properly?”

(The employee comes back with my mixed paint now and hands it to me. I thank her again but before we leave she speaks up, looking very somber.)

Employee: “You know, you really should cherish the time you have with your father while he’s with you.”

(My dad and I go quiet and quickly side-eye each other before I embarrassedly rush out the first explanation I can think of.)

Me: “Oh, no! We’re not actually arguing! We’re Italian!”

(We hustled off towards the checkout before she could say anything back. I’m so sorry for making you think we were fighting, nice paint lady!)