The comedic perfection of family life | Jack Marshall's column

He is also naturally lax with the recommended policy of actually using his hearing aids. Instead, he complains they’re no good, preferring to ‘I can’t hear you’ and ‘what?’ his way through life, growing increasingly grumbly.

Recently, he was in a supermarket, a place for which he holds a natural hatred because it denotes queues and time away from things like fishing, fettling with cars, and watching YouTube videos of people fixing watches. You know, dad hobbies.

In the supermarket, he received a phone call.

“Hello, Mr Marshall? This is Healing Matters, I’d just like…”

“Let me stop you right there,” was my dad’s reply. “With all due respect, I’ve no interest in whatever self-help healing stuff you’re offering; it’s just not for me. Each to their own, but all that zen business is a bit beyond me, so thanks but no thanks.”

Confident he’d swiftly and effectively shut down any conversational avenue at the end of which lay even the whiff of spiritual enlightenment or self-reflection on an ethereal level, he put the phone down and returned to the task of hunting down the exact brand of dishwasher tablets he’d been sent to find.

Unfortunately, with his lug-holes already assaulted by the low murmur of a Tesco on a Saturday morning and the odd loudspeaker announcement, his dimmed hearing hadn’t quite picked up what the kindly person on the other end of the phone was saying correctly.

The phone rang again.

“Hello, Mr Marshall? I’m sorry, I think there’s been a misunderstanding, this is Hearing Matters - we’re calling about your new hearing aids.”

It was almost too good to be true. Had it been a comedy skit, the laugh track would have erupted.

There’s a wonderful beauty in being privy to those little gems of family life: the pure human instances of situational perfection coupled with the added funny-factor of your own closeness to the protagonists. It’s the spice of life.

One other gem bears retelling.

In a steak restaurant, my brother orders a sirloin, prompting the jovial waitress to ask - tongue-in-cheek - ‘well done?’ A polite chuckle ripples around the table at the sheer ridiculousness of such a heinous culinary crime but my brother, away with the proverbial fairies, completely misses the gist of what she was saying.

‘Thank you,’ he replies sincerely.

Perfection.