Jorge Posada does it! Moises Alou did it, too!

"Steroids? Growth hormone? Is he on the juice?"

Nope--they both pee on their hands to keep them ready for baseball!

A see one of my athletes slouch in the back, sheepish grin on his face--"yeah, I do it, too..." He'll regret admitting that until he goes away to college.

Not only that, back in the olden days, when I was a kid, some mothers wiped their babies' faces with a wet diaper.

"Like wet from pee?"

Indeed...

"That's GROSS!"

And then I talk about urea--a simple compound, really, and the major one in urine (besides water). I draw the structure on the board, pause, then ask if anyone else in class rubs urea on their skin.

"Dr. Doyle, STOP!"

I ask them if they have any skin softeners--and, of course, everybody does, rubbing emollients onto your skin during class has superseded knuckle-cracking.

Look at the ingredients.

And then I wait for it; in a moment is comes....

SHRIEK!

Sometimes followed by a bottle of lotion flying across the room. Yes, that fancy bottle of skin softener has urea in it. I let the children fathom where it came from....