this is what happens when your father is a urologist

When you are a teenager, you are required to work one summer in his office downtown. You have to take the L and figure out your way there and back, and then learn to answer phones and file things and write letters he dictates. You memorize phrases such as "the abdomen is soft with no masses or organomegaly" and can correctly spell at least 50 different medications, many of which are for ED (erectile dysfuntion) or BPH (benign prostatic hyperplasia), or help to treat LUTS (lower urinary tract symptoms), which can include a weak stream, dysuria, urge incontinence, frequency, and nocturia, among other symptoms.

And then, almost 13 years later, you’re trying to read his handwriting, and you’ve been staring at this one word for over three minutes, just staring and squinting and even holding the paper up closer to your eyes, and holding it up to the fluorescent basement lights to get a better view. And you’ve already done 27 letters and you only have 5 more to go, but you are stuck on this goddamn word, and you’re too anal to move on...you just can't decipher it.

And finally. Finally. It clicks. You recognize the word, and you throw your arms up in the air and yell "SCROTUM!"

It was scrotum all along.