Microscope Eyepieces Gone

During my career as a skin pathologist, I have had encounters with many residents in training, and even occasionally with medical students.  I am a bit hesitant to have medical students work with me, because they are so young in their training and pathology is so specialized. But I consented once for a young lady who was a third year medical student.  She was the daughter of a fellow doctor I was acquainted with, so I agreed to have her sit in on one of my afternoon sign-out sessions.  I took down my extra microscope head from a box on my shelf, and attached it to my own microscope.  With the aid of small mirrors within a metal tube that connected the two heads, two observers can look through eyepieces side by side and see the same things at once.  The afternoon went surprisingly well.  She seemed very interested, and readily acknowledged all the fine details I was pointing out on the slides.  I was impressed with her enthusiasm, and when she left after our three hours together, I wondered if she might indeed become a pathologist one day.  Imagine my shock, though, when I discovered that both of the eyepieces to her microscope head had slipped out of place and lay hapless in the box that I took off my shelf in the morning.  The head through which she had peered all afternoon housed only two useless eye tubes.  She hadn't seen a thing, other than two searing, painful pinpoints of intense light that had probably fried her retinas.  I chuckled to myself in puzzlement and pity, amazed at both her pretense and pain threshold.  

LESSON LEARNED:  Never be embarrassed or afraid to open your mouth and question something when you don't know what is going on!  The "emperor's new clothes" thing only goes so far, and you probably won't get away with it!

FEEDBACK:  WHAT EMBARRASSING MOMENTS HAVE YOU HAD DUE TO FEAR OF DISCOVERY OR EMBARRASSMENT?