I heard my grandmother tell my stepfather, “Goddammit, you could tear up a cannonball in a sandbox with a rubber hammer!” I think she was irritated at the way he was always borrowing Grandpa’s tools. It’s still one of my favorite sayings.
Another time, she told me very seriously that women in Europe didn’t wear bras; they tied their tits up with string. I was quite young when she told me this; I spent years trying to figure out what kind of knots they could possibly use.
Me, pointing at the family cat that my father was sitting on: “Who’s that?”
My father to me: “That’s my son, Richard.”
Me to my father, who was still sitting on the family cat: “Who am I”
My father to me: “I don’t know who the hell you are.”
My grandfather cracked me up just last night with one. My grandmother was going on to my mother and I about how she had always wanted six sons and that’s why she had six sons. I asked her why, specifically, she wanted six sons when my grandfather piped up with, “We’re going to need pallbearers.”