Saturday, January 12, 2008

A Peculiar People or a Peculiar Nurse?

At a recent trip to the doctor's office, the nurse tried to convince my wife to get the HPV vaccine. For those that don't know, the vaccine prevents a certain sexually-transmitted virus that can lead to cervical cancer. My wife didn't know much about it and so she resisted the nurse's attempt to push it on her. She isn't anti-vaccination, but she understandably does like to know what she's doing before she agrees to such things.

The nurse could not believe that she would refuse. She explained that if she had multiple partners, this could protect her from getting cancer. My wife explained that she was married.

"Well, I was married once too," the nurse responded. My wife continued to refuse, although I wouldn't have judged her if she decided to comply (I have nothing against the vaccine).

The nurse left and came back a few minutes later. "How was I supposed to know that you were married? You're 25." Probably realizing how rude she had been, the nurse turned defensive.

The conversation turned to other matters, and it came out that she has a son. Fortunately my wife didn't reveal that we also have a daughter, or else the poor lady probably would have had a heart attack.

So in the matter of minutes, my wife was told she was weird in 3 ways:

1) She didn't consider it a realistic possibility that she would have multiple partners in the same time frame.

2) She's married at the young age of 25 (has been for 5 years, but she didn't tell the nurse that).

3) She has at least 1 child, again at the ridiculously young age of 25.

Are we really that strange, or is this nurse just crazy?

3 comments:

Anonymous said...
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Dan Olsen said...

Ironically, I think that it means we're "weird" in the eyes of the world. Call me weird, or call me peculiar, but I'm quite happy with my wife, and don't feel the need to seek elsewhere for intimacy.

Which raises the question, How does the world define intimacy?

I think that the world's view of it is rather hollow and unsatisfying, more often than not.

Anonymous said...

You write very well.