Lucy Mangan: Dad's leaving on a jet plane, don't know if Mum'll be the same again…

Lucy Mangan: 'Packing for Dad is like watching an exceptionally boring episode of The Krypton Factor. “Tickets? Passport? Headache pills? Heart pills? Emergency bottle of dandelion and burdock? Pac-a-mac?" ' Photograph: Jules Frazier/Getty

Dad is going on a month-long working holiday in Cape Cod. I know. How some people suffer. The family has assembled to prepare for the journey.

"Are you sure you've got everything, Dad?" my sister asks, as she begins the task of fitting the pile of his possessions on the spare bed into his suitcase. It's like watching an exceptionally slow episode of The Krypton Factor. "Tickets? Passport? Headache pills? Heart pills? Emergency bottle of dandelion and burdock? Pac-a-mac?"

"I've changed to elderflower cordial," he says. "I thought it was about time I embraced my feminine side. It's been a long time since I?embraced anything feminine."

"What's that?" Mum says, as she comes in carrying her grandson, three cups of tea, a can of paint, because she's going to touch up the guest room skirting boards while she's there, and a bottle of sunscreen, which she adds to the pile. It's factor 50 – basically, a cardigan in a bottle. Mangans burn within minutes of being in the sun. It's?because, for the first few hundred generations, we lived in turf huts under Ireland's grey mizzle. "Melanin's for Protestants," my grandma used to say, then push her kids out of the back door in their T-shirts for a taste of what hellfire would feel like if they didn't behave. "We puckered and shrivelled like bacon in a?hot pan," Dad recalls fondly. "Your Uncle Declan took a bite out of?his?own leg once. Well, it hadn't been his?turn for breakfast that morning. Happy?days."

While my sister packs (helped by?her nephew: "Drop! I drop it! No, not have it now"), the rest of us go downstairs to check that Mum is ready for Dad's departure, too. "Now this," Dad says as we enter, "is The Kitchen. It?is where food is prepared and cooked. This is the oven. This is the hob. This – above all – is the microwave."

Mum's interest is piqued. "But where's the food?" she asks.

"Here, in this white thing," Dad says, leading her to the fridge. "In here," he says, opening the top door, "is fresh food. Behold: tomatoes, eggs, ham, mayonnaise, cheese and assorted other comestibles, which can be laid between two pieces of bread in various tasty groupings to form the Lunchtime Sandwich."

"I'm not dirtying a knife for mayonnaise," Mum says.

"Condiments aren't compulsory," Dad says. "After all, I do not want life to become too joyful without me. You might change the locks again."

"Will I have to slice those tomato things?" Mum asks. "And cheese?"

"Yes."

"I'll probably just have coffee." "For your evening meals," Dad says, opening the bottom door, "I have filled this – the 'freezer' – with portions of home-cooked bolognese sauce, fish pie, shepherd's pie and lasagne, to which you will need only to add pasta or peas to create a delicious and nutritious dinner."

"I'll probably just have wine."

"As you wish, light of my life."

My sister comes downstairs, nephew in one hand, suitcase in the other. "All done," she says. "Except for the padlock. What combination do you want this time, Dad? Tom Finney's birthday? Alma Cogan's vital statistics? Or the first six Mersenne primes?"

He decides on Tom Finney. He puts on his coat and sits on his suitcase in?the porch. He has to leave in eight hours and doesn't like to be rushed.

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Lucy Mangan: a little goes a long way

Lucy Mangan: 'To slow the descent into insanity and risibility, we guilt-prone liberals must insist on maintaining a de minimis requirement before the guilt/rage/offence glands are activated.' Photograph: Alamy

There's a new word out?there, and if you haven't heard it yet, you soon will. (In the normal run of things, I?mean, not just because I'm about to mention it here.)

The word is "microaggressions". It?was first coined in the 1970s to describe the kind of small, non-physical interactions that nevertheless help create and perpetuate the oppressive environment in which a disadvantaged group lives. Basically,?it refers to the kind of thing that you would otherwise have to resort to clumsy circumlocution to avoid – for instance, "I couldn't put my finger on quite how or why, and it's hardly worth bothering about really, but, you know, it made me feel a bit shitty anyway." A billion examples can be found at microaggressions.com, which is lucky, or that?would be one highly misleading website address.

Identifying microaggressions is a?new (or at least resurgent) twist on?political correctness. And,?like?political correctness, it?is both a) a brilliant and fundamentally sound idea that would, if properly practised, result in greater happiness for a greater number of people; and b)?capable of quickly leading practitioners down spiralling corridors of guilt, anxiety and negativity that hide the original departure point from view.

These lead to barred and padded cells from which there can be no speedy return and outside which non-liberals gather to smoke?cigars, point and laugh. "You guys!"?they say, fat bellies and multiple chins wobbling with?glee. "You always take things too far!"

I, for instance, began by (I?think?usefully) mentally recasting heavy shop doors as not just a personal inconvenience but an actively hostile presence (to wheelchair users and people, primarily the wimminz, with prams). But by the end of the first week I had turned every man clearing his throat on the train into?a Vile Oppressor (women are taught to keep their phlegm dispersals private, ergo gender-specific mucosal tyranny). And by the end?of the month I was curled in the foetal position trying to decide on the validity of a friend's argument that, by going to the library, I?was depriving the publishing industry of vital support. Or that, by buying books, I?was depriving the library of vital support. I forget which, and the scratches I?made on?the floor as I tried to?work it out are indecipherable.

To slow the descent into insanity and risibility, we guilt-prone liberals?must insist on maintaining a?de minimis requirement before the?guilt/rage/offence glands are activated. For example, a man leers at a teenage girl on the street? Let them juice away and fuel your intervention, be it verbal or merely stink-eyed. Someone demands that you write a cheque to Faber every time you use the library? Ignore him and have a biscuit instead.

And don't forget that a relentless focus on all the negative aspects of the world will eventually destroy you and leave the place entirely in?the hands of the fat-bellied plutocrats outside your door. I'm putting a call out, therefore, for microniceties. If?you find any, for the love of – and?without wishing?to?denigrate, discommode or impugn those who do not believe?in any divinity or whose religious affiliation lies with one other than the Christian deity – God,?let me know.

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