Last summer, my father went almost completely deaf in his right ear.

Sitting around the table at Chez Panisse, a fancy Bay Area restaurant. The players: me, my mother and father; I’m talking to my mom. My father puts his hearing aid in.

Father: "Wow! I can hear you now!"
Me (derisively): "Guess that means we have to stop calling you the N-word, then, since you can hear us."
Father: "What?"
Me (slightly louder): "The N-word."
Father: "The what?"
Mother (loudly): "The N-word!"
Father: "The what word?"
Mother (bellowing): "Nigger!"
Every head in the restaurant snaps towards us.
Father: "Oh."