Dr. Pederstein

      “I have much respect for your father. But your father, his thinking is old-fashioned.”

- Sollozzo, speaking in Sicilian, to Michael Corleone.

- The Godfather

             I should have destroyed Beth’s copy of “Frankenstein” years ago. Now, it’s up to the good folks at the University of Michigan Medical Scientist Training Program to have a hard talk with her, before things go too far.

            Beth has earned a mega scholarship to attend medical school and get her PhD. The hope is that one day her studies will bring the world one step closer to, say, a cure for cancer. She has reflected a lot about what direction she wants to take, and recently she has had some revolutionary ideas.

            “I’m going to invent a drug to keep puppies from turning into adult dogs.” She said during her impromptu physical examination of Vito in our kitchen.

            “I know, they’re so cute,” I said. “You just wanna keep ‘em small forever, don’t ya?”

            “Yes,” she answered, as she palpated his liver. “That is why I’m going to discover the drug to keep a dog a puppy. It is too late for Vito, but I can conceive of creating a formula that will allow an owner to keep his pet a baby.”

            “I thought you were going to study something normal, like cancer. The University may not like it if you use a lab for your own ulterior motives.”

             “The puppy drug will offer years of health,” she said, unfazed. “A fountain of youth, if you will.” Then she pried open his mouth and looked for signs of a cleft palate.

             “Ohhh, I see,” I said. “You’re thinking of a way to slow the aging process as it relates to something like Alzheimer’s disease, if you will.”
            “Could be,’ she said. “But my main focus would be to keep puppies small.”

            “Their brains?” I asked. “And everything?”

            “I would wait until 3.5 months, when they have developed 100 percent of their brain mass. Then I would begin injections. At that point, they would remain puppies for the duration of their lives.”

            “That’s tampering with nature, though.”

            “Chemotherapy, the polio vaccine, even over-the-counter vitamins, all these medical breakthroughs tamper with nature, Mother.”

            “But keeping a dog a puppy, that’s a bit much.”

            “What about the reverse? What about growth hormones that make people bigger?”

            “I wished they’d had a ‘Baby Drug’ when you were little,” I said as I grabbed Vito from her mad-scientist arms. “You were cuter then, too.”

            Recently we got a visit from a couple of her younger cousins, Johnny, a fifth grader, and Jimmy, who is in third grade. Beth thinks they are some of the cutest boys ever, and she can’t hide her affection for them.

            She mentioned the Puppy Drug to their father, her Uncle Joe, who also happens to be a pharmacist. It was subtle, but I believe she tried to enlist him in her scheme. At first, Joe laughed heartily. Beth has always been good-natured, so why wouldn’t he think she was just saying something funny. But when she didn’t respond in the usual way, like laughing back, he grabbed Johnny and Jimmy’s hands and backed himself and his children away from her and out the door.

             “You know he’s not going to let you see them again,” I said to her, “until Jimmy turns 18.”