How $20 and a stripper changed my life.

I always knew I wanted to be a doctor.  As a kid, I don't ever remember thinking of doing or being anything else.  The problem was, as I was going through medical school, I could never decide what type of doctor I wanted to become.  I liked almost every rotation I did.  I wanted to be a surgeon, a pediatrician, a gastroenterologist etc.  The only thing I had eliminated for sure was OB.  There was just something about  pregnant women screaming "take this baby from me!" that made me very nervous.
     Then it happened.  I was a senior medical student on my rotation through the Emergency Department.  It was a Friday night.  A stripper came in from a local strip bar complaining that a customer had placed his tip in her vagina (no pun intended) and she could not get the money out.  So.... off to the ER.  The nurse and I go do her pelvic exam and I proceeded to remove a 20 dollar bill from her vagina.  I offered it back to her because, after all, it was 20 bucks and I was pretty sure she had earned it.  She didn't want it and told me to keep it.  Cha-ching!  I'm a poor starving medical student and someone just gives me 20 bucks!
     It was about 11 o'clock that evening and I was starving.  We had been so busy that I had not eaten since breakfast.  There was a local pizzeria that would occasionally deliver pizzas to our ER.  They would deliver to the patients in the waiting room as well as to the staff.  So,  I ordered a large pepperoni pizza to be delivered to the ER.  I paid the delivery man the $12 dollars and told him "keep the change".  He didn't even seem to notice or think it was odd that I was handing him the $20 dollar bill with a gloved hand.  My hunger was satisfied and it was at that point that I realized my calling in medicine.  I thought to myself that this was perhaps the only job in the world where you could go to work, pull 20 bucks out of a woman's vagina and then buy your dinner with it!
     My life career choice had been made!  I completed my Emergency Medicine residency four years later.  It has been 22 years now with many adventures since.
     Now I know why Mom always said never to put money in your mouth because you never know where it has been!
     More true stories of my days and a life spent in the ER to come!