Mother’s Day, 2012

“If you want to know how a guy is going to treat you down the road, take a look at how he treats his mother. If he’s respectful of his mother, he’ll be respectful toward you. If he’s a jerk to his mother…you’d better dump him. Fast.”

My mother’s guidelines were intended to direct me to a suitable marriage partner. I applied them accordingly, and married a guy who adored his mother. That was twenty years ago. My mother’s advice proved so effective, I thought I’d never have the need for it again.

This summer, I was given a rare opportunity to apply Mom’s precepts to a relationship in an entirely different sphere. The man in question had done some business with my lady-parts, but that did not make him a potential romantic partner. The man in question was my urologist.

When I’d met the urologist in his clinic, I’d been dressed in a johnny coat. He’d been dressed in a suit and tie. His old-world formality, his swarthy complexion and his slicked-back, jet-black hair reminded me of my dear departed Grandpa Blanco. But despite the family resemblance, deep in my heart I didn’t trust the guy. I thought he was a show-off. He seemed more interested in impressing me with the latest gee-whiz treatment than in treating me appropriately.

A relationship with a doctor ought to be strictly professional, not personal, so I put whatever personal reservations I might have about him to the side. Yet a nagging voice inside me wondered if perhaps this man’s showmanship might lead to a less than desireable outcome. I was on the fence about seeing him again, or pursuing his “cutting edge” treatment, in part because I didn’t want to go through the trouble of shopping for a new urologist, and in part because mere intuition didn’t seem like a reliable measurement of a doctor’s professional aptitude.

As fate would have it, my intuition would be proven correct, luckily without the messy consequence of an undesired clinical outcome.

In what would be my last encounter this urologist, I was dressed in street clothes, and he was dressed, as always, in his suit and tie. I was carrying a parcel, a bright silk dress I’d purchased off the $50 rack in the back of the shop, which was nestled in the heart of the self-proclaimed “largest bridal district in North America.”
We both did a bit of a double-take, as sometimes happens when you run across a familiar person in an unfamiliar context. My husband and son arrived at the shop, having finshed their task of getting measured for tuxedos across the street. I introduced them to my “doctor” without spelling out his specialty for all the assembled would-be brides and bridesmaids to hear. And then the explanation for the urologist’s presence in a bridal shop became clear. A little old lady hobbled over to us on the arm of a lovely young college girl. The urologist introduced us to his daughter and his mother, who had just flown in that morning from Iran for a family wedding.
I couldn’t help it—I shared my delight at the bargains on the fifty dollar rack. “You couldn’t buy this much silk for fifty bucks! It’s Dupioni.”
As it turned out, the urologist knew all about the $50 rack. They were only there for the bargains. As nothing on the rack “carryies her size,” the urologist was planning on driving his mom to Goodwill to peruse the dresses there.
Goodwill? I wondered if his shopping plans weren’t a bit labor intensive. Why not pay full price at one of the 250 bridal shops within these scant two blocks? Hadn’t the urologist’s mother already had quite a day, flying all the way out to our fair midwestern city from Iran?
“She’s made of iron. Look at her.”
At this point, our party of two families had moved onto the street. My husband was halfway down the block, in a hurry to get to the car so he could deliver me from this unpleasant awkward encounter here in bridal shop purgatory. My son was halfway between his dad and his mom, tarrying in case I needed an arm. The urologist was keeping up with me, while the urologist’s mother, that stalwart traveler, was shuffling slowly but determinedly past the fifties-era storefronts, unaided by her granddaughter or her son.
At that moment, I made my decision. Dump him. The urologist wouldn’t wait up for his ancient mother, no matter how I tried to slow our pace. The man was too cheap to buy his mother a new dress for a wedding she’d traveled a long way to attend. If he could afford a plane ticket from Iran, he could afford a full priced dress.
My husband pulled up alongside us. My son opened the car door for his mother.
That is how it’s done.
When I waved goodbye to the urologist, I knew it was forever. The next specialist to weigh on the situation was a urogynecologist recommended by my local MS doc. She told me that if I were to continue to follow the advice of that urologist, I would end up in bad shape. Not that I needed a professional opinion to confirm …Mother knows best.