VASECTOMY FUN!

I won't be having any kids—ever.

You see, some years ago, I had my balls chopped.

I think it was a wise choice.

In fact, I’d argue that there should be a parade thrown in my honor for having the sense not to unleash another smaller, louder version of myself on the world.

I'm serious. Start organizing this thing right now.

I’d like confetti. I definitely want a band. A stripper might be nice too, but it’s not a deal breaker. I also want a giant Snoopy balloon, and I want a half-drunk Kathy Lee Gifford covering the whole thing with Ryan Seacrest and Dick Clark handling the cutaways.

That’s right, dig that guy out of the mothballs!

Hop to it!

In order to prevent an accident that might have ushered in the end of days  and unleashed what I can only imagine would be the Anti-Christ into the world, I decided at the tender age of twenty-four to get a vasectomy.

A vasectomy is supposed to be a simple procedure—and for the most part, they are. They’re fairly quick and painless, and the recovery time is no big deal at all.

"If you have it on a Friday, you can be back to work on Monday." That's what they say, and for the most part, they aren't lying.

While there isn’t really any pain involved, the actual operation stands to this very day as one of the most bizarre situations I’ve ever elected to put myself into.

The wife made the journey to the doctor with me early on a Friday morning. She wouldn’t be allowed in the actual operating room, but she wanted to be there—you know, for emotional support and all that jazz. She’s sweet like that.

I think she half-expected me to feel like I was losing a part of my manhood or something—like I’d be more Chastity Bono than Chaz Bono when it was over. Personally, I never understood that line of thinking.

Sperm proves I’m a man? Really? The ability to create little idiot versions of myself is the single defining asset of manhood? Without it, I might as well slide into a pair of panties and shove some dude’s wiener into my mouth?

Now you’re just being silly.

We arrived at the doctor’s office, I signed in, and no less than forty-five minutes later he called for me.

The penis slicing service is impeccable.

The first thing I noticed was that my nurse looked a hell of a lot like a young Diana Ross—though I’m not sure if this put me more at ease or less at ease. Diana handed me a couple of pills—which started taking effect shortly thereafter. When I was sufficiently lightheaded, she gave me a gown and pointed me in the direction of a changing room. Once I was changed, it was off to the operating room.

I kept expecting her to break into a rousing rendition of “Ain't No Mountain High Enough.”

She didn’t.

"Go ahead and lay down on your back, baby."

Baby? That was a little informal.

I did exactly as sassy Diana asked.

I was down, and I was comfortable, the pills were doing their job, and before I knew it she was sliding a pillow underneath my head, which in turn made me even more comfortable.

This was going great.

A few minutes later, the doctor strolled in. He was a young guy—mid-to-late thirties with a very big, very round, and very red face. He had cheeks like Santa Claus.

Awesome.

My doctor was Santa Claus, and my nurse was Diana Ross. That’s a double-win in my book. This was going to be a breeze.

Diana rolled my gown up and exposed my most special of areas to the chilly, air-conditioned air. As expected, this caused it to shrink just a smidge. It wasn’t exactly the first impression I wanted to make, but there wasn’t much I could do about.

Why do they always run from the cold, anyway?

Does an Eskimo's dong do the same thing? Is all of Alaska filled with tiny-junked Eskimos and unsatisfied Eskimo women?

I need to find an Eskimo and ask.

To the right of me, Santa was fumbling around with something metal. I could hear some clanking. The sound disappeared when Diana clicked on a radio somewhere behind my head and some ultra-relaxing elevator music began to play.

Just as I was settling into the sweet sounds of a Kenny G cover band, the seventies funk diva wrapped her hand around my pee-hose and tugged.

Hello!

She quickly unrolled some tape and began taping it my belly. I'd say she was taping him to my chest, but I'd just be bragging—and lying.

My eyes moved to the ceiling. Maybe this wasn’t going to be so much fun after all. Maybe I jumped to conclusions. Maybe I was a little quick to judge. Maybe I let Santa and his chop-happy helper lull me into a false sense of security.

A pair of hands was rubbing something wet onto my sack.

Okay, then.

Now I was getting nervous. I needed to focus on something else—something other than the fact that two people were preparing to slice into the most delicate patch of flesh on my body. The anticipation of the knife on my man marbles was rapidly working its way into my brain. I could visualize the knife cutting—and the blood—and the goop inside.

I desperately needed to focus on something else—on anything else.

I started counting holes in the ceiling panels. I needed to do something and there wasn’t much else available.

2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8…what the hell was that?

Suddenly, there was a breeze where there shouldn’t have been a breeze.

Did someone just slice open my coin purse?

I needed to relax. I needed to ignore what was happening and relax. This wasn’t fun at all. Why did I ever think it was going to be fun? I tried to focus on the music. That’s what it was there for, right? It sounded like an elevator version of "The Wind Beneath My Wings."

I hate that song.

Unable to suffer through any more faux Bette Midler, I went back to counting. I couldn’t figure out where I stopped. 25? 28?

Screw it.

16. 17. 18…what the hell?

Suddenly, I could very literally feel something being pulled out of my marble casing. It didn’t hurt—not one bit. I could still feel it, though.

Something was cut.

Then something was burning.

What's that smell?

It smelled like a fish being poked with a soldering iron.

Holy crap. It was me! It’s me I was smelling! The stringy insides of my hanger pouch was the fish and those sick bastards were frying me up!

A few minutes and a couple more snips, stuffs, and sews later, it was nearly over. The voice of Santa Claus rose up from my crotch. "Okay, Mr. Novak. We're almost done."

I tried to focus my attention on the ceiling and the terrible music—I really did. The sensations and the smells and the weirdness of it all was simply too much to handle.

I started laughing.

I started laughing out loud.

"Everything okay, Mr. Novak?"

I told Santa that everything was hunky-dory and tried my damnedest to stop from giggling, but I couldn’t. What kind of question was that anyway? He was in the middle of stuffing something that felt a little like spaghetti into a slit cut into my baby housing. Everything wasn’t okay. Everything was goofy.

I mean, I was voluntarily paying this man to hack up my freshly shaven testicles and poke at the stuff inside. When I stopped to think about it, it was pretty damn bizarre.

It deserved a laugh.

I spent the next three days walking like a bow-legged pregnant woman moments from giving birth, changing bloody bandages every few hours, and wearing a piss-soaked jockstrap. The entire time my balls were the same color as a rotting prune.

Despite the claims to the contrary, I wasn't completely healed by Monday.

I'm also still waiting on my parade.

Oh, and don't worry about the Snoopy balloon. I've changed my mind.

I want Mr. Peabody now.

Sherman too.

PARLAN NELLISON

I was at my very first comic book convention, I was twelve years old and I was nervous as hell.

The place was bigger than I expected it to be – filled with chubby, greasy-skinned nerds and even chubbier, greasier-skinned nerds in costumes that made them look silly, chubby and strangely, even more greasy-skinned.

I pulled the stack of drawings under my arms closer to my body and breathed deeply. My feet wouldn’t move. My legs felt heavy and my lips were dry. Even the multitude of Spider-Man paraphernalia wasn’t making me comfortable, and Spider-Man had always made me comfortable.

Why did I bring the stupid drawings? I shouldn’t have brought the drawings. I might have been able to enjoy the surrounding nerd fiesta if I hadn’t brought the drawings.

When my mother offered up a trip to the convention a month prior, I was excited. I was really excited. I loved comic books. I’d always loved comic books and I was always going to love comic books. When she suggested that I bring along my drawings to show around, my excitement petered, wrinkled and crawled up into me like a chilly penis.

I didn’t want to show anyone my stupid little drawings. That didn’t sound fun at all.

It’s not that I wasn’t any good, because I was pretty good – for a twelve year old.

There were going to be adults there – people older and more talented than me – people looking for jobs and struggling to feed their families. Editors and business people and such didn’t have time to deal with a twelve year-old wiener with a stack of mostly crappy Spawn sketches.

It was silly and I was going to feel silly doing it.

I shouldn’t have brought the stupid drawings.

My mother mashed her hand into the small of my back and pointed toward the opposite side of the room. “Why don’t you go wait in that line over there?”

Fifty or so feet away a line of Silent Bob-looking nerds was slowly forming. At the front of the line there was a small table with an elderly couple seated behind – elderly from the perspective of a twelve year-old, anyway.

When I didn’t move, my mother nudged me again. “Go on, Steven.”

I lowered my stance, shifted my weight and refused to budge. “Mom, I don’t want to. I don’t even know who those people are.”

It was the truth. I’d never seen either of the white-haired old goats before.

“That doesn’t matter, Steven.” My mother squinted her eyes, looked past the line of unshaven, arty nerds and tried to read sign taped to the front of the table. “Look, his name is right there…Parlan.” The conga line of dorks was obscuring most the letters and she was adding replacements on her own, “Parlan Nellison.”

Parlan Nellison?

I shook my head. “What? I don’t even think that’s a name.”

My mother was rapidly becoming annoyed. She wedged both hands in my back, leaned into me and shoved me forward. “Yes it is, Steven! You have to start getting better at stuff like this! Now walk over there and get in line!”

I couldn’t figure out why she was making me do something I clearly had no interest in doing. If she wanted to talk to old man Parlan so badly, why didn’t she do it? I didn’t want to talk to the guy, and I sure as hell didn’t want to awkwardly offer to show him my drawings!

I wanted to call my mother a four-letter word! I wanted to kick her in the shin, tear my clothes off and run into the city screaming! I wanted to chop off her shove-happy hands and drawn my next round of Spawn drawings in the blood spurting from the stumps! I wan-

The look on her face told me that I needed to start walking.

I started walking.

I stood in that line for nearly thirty minutes, struggling to control my breathing and wiping massive amounts of sweat from my forehead. One by one the nerds plopped their oversized nerd butts beside Grandpa Parlan, opened their portfolios and began to explain the ins and outs of their work.  The line was getting shorter and shorter. My neck felt itchy. My legs had transformed from concrete to loose spaghetti. I looked over at my mother - she was flashing me the thumbs up.

I was totally going to paint something in her blood.

The longhaired goober in front of me sat down and opened his portfolio. Suddenly I was next. As old man Parlan thumbed through the pages I was finally able to read the name on the paper hanging from the front of the table. Parlan’s name wasn’t even Parlan – it was Harlan.

Harlan Ellison.

At twelve years old, I didn’t have any idea who in the hell Harlan Ellison was. I had no idea that he was one of the most influential science fiction writers of his generation. I’d never really seen Star Trek, and I had no idea what The City on the Edge of Forever was. I hadn’t read I Have No Mouth, and I Must Scream, or A Boy and His Dog, and I certainly didn’t know anything about him being the literary world most famous curmudgeonly asshole.

If I had, I would’ve reconsidered kicking my mom in the shin.

Harlan flipped close the portfolio in front of him, shook his head, sighed deeply and waved away Mr. Nerdy McTrenchcoat. When he finally looked at me, he grimaced.

The feeling was mutual.

I didn’t want to be there any more than he wanted me to be there. His old-timey arm raised and his mummified finger pointed squarely in my direction. His lips curled into an annoyed snarl and he flashed his pearly white dentures. He was moments from telling me to go play in traffic when his wife snatched his wrist, and returned his wrinkly appendage to the table.

She smiled sweetly in my direction and patted the table gently with her free hand. “Hi there.”

Women.

It would have been better for all involved if she’d just let the cranky old bastard scream at me, clonk his cup of coffee off my forehead and send me on my way. Instead she had to be nice, and she had to be cordial, and she had to keep him from getting arrested for assaulting a twelve year-old.

Women.

For the next ten minutes, Harlan begrudgingly flipped through the pages of my raggedy sketchbook and rolled his eyes while his wife remarked on just how talented I was. When he came to my poorly proportioned renderings of large-breasted women, he chuckled. When he came to my Liefeld-esque, Youngblood drawings he moaned. When he came to the comic book I’d drawn on typing paper and stapled down the side, he nearly slammed his head against the table.

Clearly annoyed, the cranky old sack, leaned back in his chair, tossed his hands into the air and sighed a sigh so deep it made the old Jim Carey talking butt cheek gag seem subtle.

His wife tossed another talented my way to cover it up.

Suddenly I wanted to kick him in the shin as well – her too – just because.

After all the pages had been turned, the old bastard flipped my sketchbook shut and nudged me in the shoulder – clearly indicating that he wanted me to get lost. His wife shook my hand.

He did not.

I looked Harlan straight in the eye and said, “Thank you, Mr. Nellison.”

At that point I knew his name. I was just being a jerk.

He sort of deserved it.

When it over I shuffled through the crowd and returned to my mother’s side. Believe it or not, the ditzy broad actually had the nerve to try and give me a high five.

To this day she has no idea how very close she was to getting her arms chopped off and how very close I was to crafting my next typing paper comic book with her blood.