Retired Professor of Lingustics Desmond Bates is going deaf. It's a bother for his wife who has an enviably successful new career and is too busy to be endlessly repeating herself. Roles are reversed with his aging father; who resents his son's attempts to help him. And then there's Alex; a student whom Desmond has agreed to help after a typical misunderstanding at a party. But her increasingly bizarre requests cannot all be blamed on his defective hearing. So much for growing old gracefully...