A Minor Doctor No Longer

It is with great pleasure that I announce that the Doctor has received a promotion. No longer Captain Doctor, she is now to be addressed as Major Doctor. Outside a military setting, which frowns on this sort of additional labeling, she prefers Major Doctor Mommy.

My father asked if that means I need to salute her with both hands now. That’s just silly. I was doing that already. One of her friends noted that Major sounded like a huge deal because it was only three ranks below Brigadier General. I should have an eighty-foot flag ready to go when she gets that promotion, so she can address the troops like Patton. I’ll get those poofy pant-thingies for her this weekend.

The promotion comes with a ceremony. In front of a flag, the Doctor re-affirms her oath to preserve, protect and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Then she gets her oak cluster epaulets put on for the first time. My daughter gets to play with, then throw, the old Captain epaulets. My son gets to participate by wiggling and smiling. I can tell he’s proud of his Major Doctor Mommy. This Military Husband is, too. On the way out of the building, a bunch of other servicemen salute her. It never gets old watching people salute my wife.

As is customary, the newly minted Major has to buy everyone drinks to celebrate. On the way, the Doctor wants to ask me something. She asks me whether it bothers me that her career is advancing at a time my own career isn't. The delivery of the question sounds like a joke, but my finely-tuned husband sense starts tingling. I think the question is actually designed to take the temperature of our marriage. “Kidding on the square,” is, I think, the phrase.

I was never interested in marrying someone who would only be a mirror of my own opinions. I didn’t want an extension of myself in a wife. I am honestly proud of my wife for undertaking the herculean task of becoming a surgeon and financing the entire endeavor without anyone except Uncle Sam’s assistance. Her accomplishments don’t diminish my own. Just the opposite, in fact, as our family shares in her success.

“Not in the slightest. What I find threatening is that you know how to do vasectomies.”