In Year of Lord and Savior Cher Dolly Parton Cirie Fields two thousand and like seventeen-ish, my husband loudly announced that he was going to quit his job that paid him American money to go back to school.

I responded the only way I knew how: condescension.

I informed this man that he was an Old, and more importantly, I am and Older, and the school part of my life ended before I even owned a smart phone. This lecture fell on unwilling ears, and the next thing I knew, he was studying from 2:00 AM to Sunday April 35th every single day for an exam that would allow him to apply for the privilege of embarking on the most expensive undertaking of our lives.

On the first day of medical school I packed him a lunch and walked him to the school bus, wiping a tear and waving at him until he was out of sight. When I arrived back at home, there was an entire mafia's worth of men who smelled like cannoli waiting at my house holding decapitated horse heads, demanding that I pay them $221,855 per hour in tuition.

I'm not joking about medical school tuition. That was just the initial deposit. After that it cost $1.43 million dollars and a lap dance PER DAY. I had to send it via venmo to an account that was suspiciously called @medikalScoooool🤗LOLROFL. On the plus side, my quads are now the size of six Doogie Housers thanks to the lap dances.

But it was only four years. But a presidential administration. One month shy of the length of the entire Civil War. Only 1,461 extremely long expensive days. One of those days is a leap day. I believe they make medical school four years to ensure that you have to endure a leap day just to make the whole thing cosmically longer.

"But Eli," you surely just said out loud with your mouth and your tongue and your saliva and your argument that will be falling apart shortly. "Why are you complaining? At the end of those four eternal years, you get to be married to a doctor!"

Haha, say I! HahahahahahaHA, I repeat for emphasis.

Twas I who first so innocently thunk that thought. A doctor! Every girl's dream!

But as we approached the end of those four years, having now paid quadruple the national debt to Moneybags University, my dragon slayer informed me that he was going to become a dermatologist, which includes a FOUR YEAR residency.

NOT a Vegas residency. (I asked.)

I reminded him that we already did a Civil War's worth of service and as hot as I looked in my Abe Lincoln hat, I was ready to enjoy a break in the theatre.

But Skylar explained that the medical degree actually means nothing without residency. Yes, I was informed that we had purchased a degree that was worthless unless you tacked on an insane warranty onto the back of it.

And so, this man began residency!

Not the Vegas kind!

"But they pay him for the residency, right?" you askity ask ask.

Correct! But only technically. Not spiritually.

After the thousands of days and billions of dollars of medical school, they assigned him to work every single day from negative thirteen squared until triple o'clock and they paid him nine cents and belly dance.

Every day he worked that schedule!

For four years!

We lived through three Olympic Gameseses during that! I don't even understand how that is mathematically possible! I think the Chinese messed with the calendar somehow.

But finally, there was a faint light at the end of this nearly-decade-long tunnel, where I find myself now firmly in my forties, which is my dad's age.

I was in the middle of ripping another ring off of a paper chain that once wrapped around the world twice when he informed me that residency is not the end of the road.

No, no, my friends.

There's also something called Fellowship.

They call it Fellowship to make it sound like it's so fun and you get lots of friends and maybe even a ring that makes you disappear when you wear it.

But no. As I understand it, this is just another year of residency. Not the Vegas kind.

And! Also! Too! A fellowship is voluntary! As in, we don't have to do this!

But this man decided he doesn't want to only be a dermatologist. He wants to be a pediatric dermatologist!

So I asked him the only important question to be asked: "So, will you make more money as a pediatric dermatologist compared to just a regular old dermatologist?"

"No!" he informed me in a tone that suggests I need to send him back to school to learn how to break bad news to people. "I'll actually make less money as a pediatric dermatologist."

I asked him, well, why on Earth and hell and Mordor we would do this voluntary thing.

And this man had the gall to answer, "Because I want to spend my career helping children and telling moms they are doing a really good job."

DON'T GET DISTRACTED. I know that's sweet. But his goodness is not the point. My pain is.

And so, now, in a month or two, we will begin this fellowship.

And when he is done, and I am an old lady aboard a ship, tossing a giant diamond into the icy waters to descend down onto my forgotten dreams, I will brace myself to find out he actually wants to be a dentist now.

~It Just Gets Stranger