My dad had a story from his student days that he loved telling, one that completely captured my imagination as a kid.
Back when he was at dentistry school, the going was incredibly tough. Anatomy was notoriously the hardest course on the syllabus, and a massive part of surviving it involved grueling lab work and detailed dissections. The end-of-year anatomy exam was the ultimate hurdle, a high-stakes ordeal that combined a massive theory section with a live practical dissection.
Armed with both his pen and his scalpel, Dad walked into the exam hall. Because of the sheer volume of information required to pass, he, like almost everyone else in his class, had been forced to play the odds during his late-night study sessions. He had strategically anticipated what topics would come up and had simply been forced to skip a few sections to save time.
He was crushed when he flipped over the paper and read Question Three: Draw a detailed cross-section of the penis. It was one of the exact topics he had completely left out of his studies.
Whenever Dad reached this part of the story, his eyes would light up with a brilliant twinkle.
"I wasn't the only person in that exam hall," he would say, "who looked down at their scalpel, looked down at their lap, and thought, 'Mmmm, is it worth it?'"
Then, the twinkle in his eyes would grow even brighter, and he’d deliver the punchline he clearly cherished: "Isn't it a good thing I decided to forgo the marks, or you might never have been born!"
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