Ricky's father is a doctor as well as a hypochondriac. He tells Ricky that Ricky's mother felt obligated to work as a nurse for less fortunate people, which is why she is away in Rwanda. He also openly diagnoses his son with syndromes each month. He tells his son he might have Asberger's or lead poisoning. Sometimes, Ricky's syndrome acts up, and the boy is silent for extended periods of time. When they drive to a lake for Ricky's best friend Billy's twelfth birthday, Ricky's father upsets Ricky and causes him to fall silent. His father tries to distract him, and asks him questions, but nothing works. His father lets Ricky take over the wheel of the car, but Ricky refuses, and the car swerves off the road. They pull over and look at mesas, and the father draws with magic markers on a whiteboard to explain something to his son, as he often does. At the birthday party, Ricky gets an elaborate present for Billy, but it is not well-wrapped. While no one is looking, Ricky unwraps all of the presents. His father sees the mess his son has made and is confused by it but fixes it for Ricky. The two join a wiffle ball game, where Billy's dad accidentally elbows Ricky's dad in the head. Ricky and his dad silently leave the party, concerned that he has a brain bleed. At the hospital, Ricky and his dad see a woman with a scratched-up back who claims the scratches are dog bites. Ricky's father tells his son that they are not dog bites. He turns out to have a brain wrinkle, but not a brain bleed. When Ricky grows up, he joins the air force. The military forces him to become a doctor because of his previous knowledge. His own child develops a condition called Raynaud's syndrome, which causes his fingers to turn blue when cold. When his fingers turn blue, Ricky tells his son that he has dog bites. The son tells his father that dog bites do not look like blue fingers.