Daisy had a playdate with a girl from her class yesterday.

A playdate, for those of you who are unfamiliar with the term, is what we used to call "playing" when I was a kid. However, in the modern urban era, we don't let our kids stroll around the neighborhood trying to round up a stickball game, because there are kidnappers lurking under every stick and child molesters drooling behind every ball. Additionally, the invention of the atomic clock allows us to schedule our children's lives to the millisecond. ("Daisy! 300,000 milliseconds until it's time to leave!"). So, much of Daisy's social time is filled with precisely timed play "dates".

Anyway, one playdate thing led to another and before you knew it we had invited the other family over for dinner on Saturday night. We had interacted with the other kid's parents a few times and they were always super nice. The wife seemed to radiate sweetness and the husband was always supremely friendly and outgoing. They were the sort of people who would make me wonder what had gone so tragically wrong with my own DNA.

So, they come over for dinner, and they're helpful, and charming, and nice, and good conversationalists, and pretty much perfect people. And then the other shoe dropped.

Me: So, Bob, what do you do for a living?
Bob: I'm a psychologist.
Me: Ah, and your wife? She mentioned something about a practice. Is she also a psychologist?
Bob: Yes.

At which point I thought, "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"

I'm not sure exactly why, but psychologists, psychiatrists, therapists, and psychoanalysts of any kind freak me the hell out. This is at least the third couple we've had over for dinner where at least one member of the couple is a head doctor.

Maybe I'm fearful that they'll use their evil powers to look inside my brain and find secrets so deeply hidden that I don't even recall burying them. Maybe they'll instantly analyze our family and conclude, "Mike, you're emotionally stunted. Hank, you're enabling him. Daisy, we're taking you away to the land of success and happiness."

Is this just a one way street? Are they looking fearfully at me wondering if I can tell that they don't have a password on their wireless network? Or that they always retype words instead of using cut and paste? I think it's just me.

They sure were nice. Too bad we can never see them again.