Growing up, I always dreaded the first day of school. It wasn’t because of the disappointment when yet another pigtailed brat rose above me in the popularity chain, nor was it the disillusionment discovering the creepy boy with glasses and the inexplicable yellow stain on his pants also outranked me. Rather, it was during introductions, when I was forced to announce my parents’ occupations to the class.
“What’s your father’s job?” my second grade teacher asked.
“Umm, he’s a, umm…” I searched for the right words, and suddenly it hit me how I could avoid the humiliation this year.
“He’s a doctor,” I said.
“What kind of doctor?”
Crap.
“A urologist,” I whispered to the ant crawling across the rug.
“We didn’t hear you,” she said.
“He’s a urologist!” I yelled, realizing I was already screwed and hoping there would be no kindergartners mockingly urinating on the playground.
“Would you like to explain to the class what that is?”
I looked around the room at the eager faces of my peers and imagined the fangs beneath those angelic stares.
“No,” I said.
This process repeated itself pretty much for the first nine years of my life. The following year we found out a classmate’s dad made porn. No one ever brought up the urine thing after that. Well, at least not referring to my dad.
Unlike my 6-year-old self, my dad has a sense of humor about the whole thing. As I grew older, his career was something I could laugh about as I explained to my friends that urine was our chief source of income.
My dad always found it the funniest of all of us. He even attempted to get a personalized license plate that said “DICKDOC” or “ICUPEE,” but the authorities didn’t go for it.
There were also times I found his odd career path useful, like when I tried to convince a high school friend that my family was crazy. He didn’t believe me until he had dinner at our house one night, and my dad took a call at the table.
“Uh-huh, uh-huh,” he said, listening intently. “So how firm is your erection?”
I watched the color drain from my friend’s face and tried really hard not to laugh first. It would be more embarrassing for him if he were the only one laughing. I figured he wasn’t coming back anyway.
It was the most gratifying I-told-you-so look I ever gave.
There were other times, however, that weren’t exactly embarrassing, but just really uncomfortable. These occurred mostly when people I knew in a formal sense would praise my father for his skill.
“I saw your father yesterday,” my sophomore English teacher told me before class one day. Before I had the chance to piece together where she might have seen my dad, she said, “He cleared that bladder infection right up!”
Picturing your English teacher peeing, especially in pain, is something no one should ever have to go through.
That night I asked my dad if the doctor-patient confidentiality applied to patients as well. The answer was, unfortunately, no.
But once I left home and moved into my dorm, I had come to feel lucky. A lot of my friends have complained about the arrogance and know-it-all personas of their doctors. My dad has never received this sort of complaint. I’m not sure if this is because of his unusual career choice, or just because of who he is.
He’s a hard worker who doesn’t take himself too seriously, which is something we should all strive to be.
Go with the flow and e-mail Kiera at wiatrak@wisc.edu.
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