I still say that it's me...
...and I think my kids will agree to that.

I had to take my son to the doctor to have an ingrown toenail fixed. For those who don't know, a toenail can sometimes be too wide for the toe, so the outside corners of it become embedded in the flesh and get infected. (Sorry for the unpleasant image there...) To fix it, the doctor removes a strip of the toenail along both sides and destroys the nail bed below it so it can't grow back.

The doctor my ex's insurance dictates she go to is in a teaching clinic- that is, they get medical students there to get their practical experience, and have a few experienced doctors on hand to guide the Doogie Howsers. This particular day it was a girl in her twenties who saw my son, and who had never done this procedure. As one would expect, she got one of the older docs to demonstrate the procedure for her, so my son and I got to listen to a lecture on how to anaesthetize the toe to achieve digital blocking, then how to cut the nail, and so on. All quite educational, and somewhat over the heads of a teenager and his father the engineer.

When all was done, my son looked at me and said, "Dad, what did he mean by digital blocking?"

The nurse bandaging his toe said cheerfully, "That means to block all the pain signals from the toe by injecting the anaesthetic into the nerves to make it numb."

I leaned closer to him and spoke in a conspiratorial voice. "Actually, when you weren't looking the doctor hooked your toe up to a USB port on a laptop and copied an mp3 file of the Carpenters into it. If you put your foot near your ear you can hear Karen Carpenter singing 'Close To You'."

The nurse looked at me as though I had seven antlers, then turned to my son. "Is he always like this?"

He glumly nodded...
( The Resident Loon Not a demographic. Do not measure., Fri 6 Jul 2007, 15:14, Reply)