Part of the Family

Well, I'm sure you all know this but my sister is dating an audiologist, well, he's not an audiologist yet, but he will be soon. Anyway, you can really tell when people make it into our family by how we accept you as an expert in whatever field you study (even if it's not really your field of study sometimes). My sister, for example knows all about aerospace engineering and if you have any question that involves any mechanical anything in any way you ask her. She'll probably know the answer, that or she'll look it up and get back to you, or she's really good at making things up. If people in my family have questions about food (why is garlic sticky? Why do potatoes get discolored after being cut? How do you avoid this?) they ask me. Anyway, I knew my husband was really "in" when my dad made a comment to him about fixing his shoulders, and knees. Now I really know that my sister's boyfriend has made it "in" to our family because of the following story:

My husband was at one of his med school interviews and they toured the campus. One lady on the faculty was showing off their clinical stuff and was looking into ears with an instrument that was connected to a monitor so everyone could see the ear. Well one girl volunteered to have her ears looked in and then nobody else would volunteer. My husband obligingly volunteered after her. When the faculty lady stuck it in his first ear there was a little bit of wax in the ear. Someone in the audience made a joke about how it looked like a huge boulder in his ear. The faculty lady, thinking that maybe Dan would be embarrassed by this (which he totally wasn't) said that it looked big only because it was on the screen. It probably was just a little flake. Then he turned away from the monitor for to check the other ear. When she put the instrument into the other ear she remarked, "Whoa! I don't think we're getting around that boulder!"

When Dan was telling me this story he remarked, "My audiologist says that ear wax is healthy and not to use Q-tips!" Now we have in our family an audiologist! How exciting!

Another way I know that he's in is that my dad wouldn't let anybody else check his hearing loss for hearing aids but him. Nobody else was good enough apparently.