(I’m helping my brother with a project. I’m cutting out pictures while he’s typing up a synopsis. He starts pounding the keys and typing gibberish.)

Me: “You know, I don’t think your teacher will accept this.”

Brother: “If I keep going, I’ll get a word!”

Me: “Well, you know what they say, give a monkey a typewriter and eventually it’ll say something.”

Brother: “The monkey or the typewriter?”

(I became engaged last year, and am currently living at home waiting for my fiancé’s lease to let out because I refuse to live with his pig roommates. The move is now in just a few months, and my father has really started to panic since I am the baby girl and the first of three girls to have a serious relationship. We have had some very serious fights over whether fiancé and I will be able to support ourselves that has really made living at home strained.)

Father: “Is that your critter over there making all that racket?”

Me: “Yes dad, that’s the hedgehog. I just cleaned his wheel and food bowl, so he’s being feisty.”

Father: “Are you taking that with you when you move out?”

Me: “Of course, I’m the only one that loves the b******.”

Father: “…alright, you’re allowed to leave.”

(My 18-year-old college freshman daughter has just used the “F” word in front of me. I give her ‘The Look’.)

Daughter: “Sorry; it’s just that I swear all the time at college. I probably use that word in every other sentence.”

Me: “You know, that reflects poorly on your vocabulary skills.”

Daughter: “Oh, it’s okay! I know plenty of other curse words, too!”

(After seeing ‘Les Miserables’, two weeks later the music is still in our heads driving us crazy. One evening my mom starts humming the first line of ‘Masters of the House’.)

Mom: “Fa la la la la…”

(Noticing our death glare reactions, she finishes.)

Mom: “…la la, la, la.” <*to the tune of ‘Deck the Halls’. It's July.)

Dad: “Nice try.”

(My younger sister is a freshman in high school. She is complaining about her homework during dinner.)

Sister: “I really hate this play I have to read.”

Me: “What play is it?”

Sister: “Romeo and Juliet. Why can’t the characters have normal names, like Smith and Jones? Why do they have to have weird names like Montague and Copulate?”