KNOWLEDGE IS A CURSE.

This is a free-country, I keep telling myself, and I smile and I breathe out, but everything swims in funny waves before me. And in the end, I just end up walking away or turning the other cheek. If there is one thing that pisses me off (and there aren't that many that I choose to), it's people who belittle my dad's profession. Or make fun of it. He's an OB-GYN and I think that is a commendable, respectable job, not one that should be poked fun at (uh, no pun intended there). I can understand twelve-year old boys who don't know better and still refer to the female genitalia as "coochies". But for twentysomething college kids? It's just unbelievably immature.
At times, I do roll with the punches. I understand that with this profession, there's just piles and piles of jokes to be made and humor to be procured. I can only laugh along when I know the person well, and know that he or she is just kidding and didn't mean anything insulting by it. "Your dad does WHAT?", and then the inevitable ha-ha, I'm-so-funny joke after that. Most people that come across this information have kept a straight face, or didn't think anything of it. But there are the few that manage to sneak something in, and then I have to play along and say, "Oh, so-and-so, you're such a gas!!", when what I really feel like is punching them straight in the nose, or kicking them right in the ca-cas.
There isn't one isolated incident that I'm referring to. This sort of thing has happened pretty much since I got into the middle-school and kids learned that girls and boys go to different doctors for their problems down there. Then the questions came up during lunch: "So do you go to your dad?" Hel-lo? There is such a thing called ethics. I'm just glad no one came up with any sick nicknames for me, although I do remember, in English class, 7th grade, when we went around saying our destined careers, this boy Harold said he wanted to be a gyno with this big smile on his face, and all the boys cawed and the girls rolled their eyes. Then there's the "So your dad likes vagina, huh?" Yeah, he really went to twelve years of medical school, just so he can look at pretty, perfect vaginas everyday. Let's not forget the seventy-three year olds that need care too. I'm glad I got the opportunity to work with him because now I've seen first-hand what I've heard from people, and I can no longer say that I'm biased, that he is indeed a great doctor. What makes a great doctor? Someone who looks the patient in the eye, someone who listens when she talks, someone who goes to their baby showers on Saturday afternoons even when they're on call, someone who insists on treating patients the same, regardless of how much money they make. And I can honestly say, my father does all those and more. I know I sound like a six-year old who put her Daddy up on a pedestal. The truth is, my father's never been up on a pedestal, he's always stayed right here with me, on the ground. So I guess for anyone who takes a swing at him, takes a swing at me too. And because I don't know how to end this properly without sounding bitter, frustrated, fed-up, annoyed or angry, I'll just leave it like... this.