The Case of the Sore Dingy

My sister, Toad, was the official witness. The conversation she described to me went something like this: Keefer, our twelve-year-old brother, is standing near the fireplace, pulling on his snow pants. He’s balancing on one foot and breathing through his teeth, struggling to get one foot through a pant leg that is turned up and inward at the ankle. His blond hair stands up on end as he begins to hop, kicking his leg out in front of him, trying to free his stuck foot.

“Mom, my dingy hurts,” he says, pausing for a moment from his flailing.

“You’re fine,” she says. Mom is searching through crates of snow gear, looking for her lost glove.

“But it hurts!” he says, sitting on the ground, continuing to fight the upturned pant leg.

“You’re fine.”

Mom finds her glove and wanders into the next room to corral Dad and me. Keefer finally succeeds in sticking both scrawny legs into his snow pants, and the family departs on a cross-country ski. The sore dingy isn’t mentioned for the rest of the day.

That was yesterday. Today, Dad and Toad are driving me to the airport. Their plan is to drop me off, pick Keefer up at the movie theater, and head to a cross-country ski race. Right now I’m loading my bag into the car and Toad is wiping snow off the windshield. Dad walks out of the house with his cell phone pressed against his ear, clearly annoyed at the person on the other end.

“Don’t take him to the emergency room,” Dad says, rolling his eyes dramatically as he walks toward us: his signal that it’s Mom, and that she’s about to do something incomprehensibly idiotic. He pounds the ice off of the windshield wipers, sighs heavily, and sits down in the driver seat—tossing his cell phone on the dashboard.

“What’s going on?” Toad asks from the back seat.

“Your brother hasn’t been washing his noodle,” Dad says. “He says its sore and that some puss squirted out.”

“And Mom’s taking him to the emergency room for that?” I ask.

“He told mom it was sore last night,” Toad says.

“Did she make him take a bath?” Dad asks.

“No, she just told him he was fine.”

“She’s always been scared of the fact that he’s not circumcised,” I add. “He’s not going to loose his dick overnight.”

“One of you call her back,” Dad says.

Toad dials, but hands the phone to Dad. He tells her to call the nursing hotline at the hospital in town, but apparently she’s stopped listening. He hangs up.

“I’m worried about his dingy always being stiff,” Dad says. “She should ask the nurse about that.” Our laughs are delayed: I turn around and look at Toad, realizing we both almost missed Dad’s crass humor.

“He says his stomach hurts, and she thinks he’s feverish. She thinks it’s some sort of internal infection,” Dad adds.

“He’s such a faker,” Toad says. “You know he just doesn’t want to race tonight.”

“Are his lymph nodes swollen?” I ask, realizing I have more medical training than anyone in my family.

“If his lymph nodes aren’t swollen, its not systemic.”

“Call your mom back,” Dad says.

“Toad, talk to Keefer. He’ll probably listen to you,” I suggest.

“Keefer, how sore is your penis?” Toad asks without much sympathy in her voice. She tells me later his response was: Toad, don’t ask me that, I’m not talking about that with you.

She changes her tone of voice, and tries a new approach. “Keefer,” she says sweetly, “does it hurt when you touch it, or is it sore all around?”

I giggle in the front sweat, and Dad rolls his eyes.

“Keefer, do you not want to race tonight? Dad says you don’t have to race.”

“Tell him he can just come and watch you,” Dad says.

“Keefer…Keefer,” Toad says patiently, “does your stomach hurt from the popcorn? Remember how your stomach always hurts when you eat popcorn.”

“Yeah,” Dad says, “I think he’s allergic to something in the grease.”

“Keefer,” Toad says, “if this was an internal infection some glands on your neck would be swollen. Touch your neck. Are the sides of your neck sore?”

“Put your mom on the phone,” Dad says. Toad hands him the phone and the conversation ends quickly, with Dad cursing under his breath.

“Has she called Aunt Carol? Drew wasn’t circumcised either,” I say.

Toad dutifully calls Aunt Carol. “Hi Carol,” she says, and then cuts right to the chase. “My Mom’s worried about Keefer. Apparently his penis is sore and some pus came out of it. Did Drew ever have that problem?”

Aunt Carol tells Toad: no, that never happened, but we did a really good job of washing it and keeping it clean. She also tells Toad to tell Mom not to overreact. Toad tries calling Mom one more time, but to no avail. After dropping me at the airport, Mom says to meet her at the emergency clinic.

I exit the car at the airport, relieved to be flying back to the desert, leaving yet another ridiculous family situation half a country behind me. Goodbye snowy northern Michigan: ahead of me awaits the California sun, and the sanctuary of my Eurovan.

“I love you sis,” I say as I hug Toad goodbye. She hugs back tightly and I know she agrees: we will watch out for each other in the future, and keep each other’s actions in check, to ensure that we never become as weird as the other members of our family.

Four hours later I call her from the Detroit airport. “How’s Keefer?” I ask.

“Fine,” she says. “The nurse told him he just needed to wash his penis.”

At this point I don’t even laugh: “Tease him about his sore dingy for me.”

Essay written December 2008