to taxes. The first time, we'd returned home from living overseas for several years. He'd gotten filing extensions for the years we were gone. When he actually got around to doing the returns, they were incredibly complex and difficult to figure out. He launched a box of tax docs across the living room and said, "Blow it all to &^%!"

The second time occurred a few years later, when we were back overseas living in Cairo, Egypt. Again, the context was taxes. With his tax documents spread all over the table, I decided to shoot his glass of juice with a suction dart. Who knew it would break the glass and send juice all over his tax docs? The swear word was directed at me and was preceded by the phrase "you little . . ."

Other than that, my father has had a model vocabulary.