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.

ME VS. BABY: WINNER TAKE ALL

I hate kids. Okay, maybe hate isn't exactly the correct term. I shouldn’t say that I hate them. I'm just completely disgusted by them, and the poop in their pants, and their goo-covered fingers, and their bizarre, crooked, no-toothed grins.

If by chance we ever meet, and you happen to bring your kid along don’t be upset if show very little interest at all in it. Don’t take it personally. It's not that I think your kid in particular is gross as much as it is that I think all kids are gross.

There’s a reason I paid a doctor to take a scalpel to my nuts up in my early twenties and it sure as hell wasn't because I adore tiny, useless bags of chubandspitandcrap.

On the off chance that you find my dislike of wide-eyed, foul smelling, sticky-fingered human beings confusing, let me take this opportunity to at least explain myself.

One day my wife and I stopped by her aunt’s house briefly to say hello and get a good look at the new addition to the family.

"The babies here! Come over and see the baby!"

“Ohmygawd the baby will be here for a few hours! Hurry up and come look!"

"Baby! Come see the baby! Come see now!"

“HOLY SHIT! YOU’VE GOTTA SEE THIS MOTHERFUCKING BABY!”

These are the kind of phone calls my wife gets on a regular basis and believe it or not she’s actually excited when she gets them.

Personally, I don't get it.

The kid doesn't walk. The kid can't talk. The kid can't sing me a song, or tell me a story. It can't chat with me about comics, or music, or make useless small talk about the weather, or pretend to be interested in any of the mostly pointless nonsense that spews from my mouth. The kid can’t really do anything other than poop. It can poop and it can drool, and when it’s done doing that it can poop and drool some more - right on top of the previous poop and drool.

Maybe I am missing something or maybe my soul is too black and my brain too jaded, but babies in general seem pretty damn useless.

I don't know.

I guess it's just me. It has to be, right? Why else would there be so many people on the planet - you know, other than the fact that people really like sex and really hate to cover their dongs in latex?

Even if it is, that doesn't necessarily make me wrong.

Call me when you can help me with my taxes at the end of the year. Until then, good luck with that whole diarrhea diaper thing.

Anyway, I was sitting on the couch next to my wife’s cousin – who was also the father of the little bundle of joy - and he has the squirming, fleshy creep show in his arms.

Did I forget to mention that he’d just announced to the room that the kid had in fact, shit her britches?

Wonderful.

With this bit of knowledge in my head, I notice that the baby is looking right at me. She was starring at me with a peculiar sort of smile on her face. She's was looking me over and scanning me for weaknesses. The little jerk was planning something. Something flashed behind those dead blue eyes – inspiration maybe – undoubtedly nefarious in nature.

She knew exactly what she was going to do.

She knew that the shimmery dollop of slobber on her mouth and the bulge of compacted crap ballooning her diaper was freaking me out.

Oh yeah, she knew.

With a bubbly, baby food smelling gurgle, she began crawling toward me. In no time at all the horizontal crawl turned vertical. Suddenly she was climbing up me.

Within seconds she was a mere three inches from my face, leaning wobbly on my shoulder on her stubby legs. Her blank eyes latched onto mine. Her mouth opened and a river of spittle rolled over her chin. Her soaked lips curled into a crooked smile. Here expression was undeniable. Without ever saying a word she was telling me, "I've got you now, you uncomfortable pathetic loser."

And she was right.

The river of mucus drool was hanging perilously from her chin, swaying back and forth as she wobbled on uneven legs and glistening in the light from the window behind us. I had to get rid of it. I needed it removed from my field of vision before my brain exploded inside my skull.

Breathing heavily, I snagged the sleeve of her little baby suit and used it to wipe her face clean. "You um…you got a little something there, don't ya? Yeah, let me help you out with that."

Mission accomplished.

While I felt slightly less queasy, the poop remained, encased in her diaper and smeared against her baby-soft butt cheeks. I could smell it. It was pungent and it was foul and it was permeating the air. A crash, or a call, or something drew the attention of her father for the moment. My mind was too preoccupied with the bouncing bag of crab dangling from my shoulder to know for sure.

He stood from the couch. “Crap. Can you watch her for a minute?”

I wanted to grab him by the wrist, toss him to the floor and kick him square in the scones! What was he thinking? I wanted to watch his kid about as much as I wanted to sit though a weekend long retrospective of the collected films of Michael Bay!

The kid’s hand moved unexpected to my face and I froze. She was pawing at my cheek and poking me in the eye with the tips of her sticky fingers.

The balls on this kid!

The unmitigated gall!

She was blatantly invading my personal space! She was touching and slapping and, and looking me right in the eyes and doing it with a devilish grin so devilish that Beelzebub himself would have blushed.

The nerve!

The absolute moxie!

I was moments from screaming when her father returned to the couch, scooped her up and pulled her away. He tossed her over his shoulder and carried her to the next room to clean the feces from her flesh.

She was smiling at me the entire time.

While I can’t be for sure, I think she might have even given me the finger.

The audacity.

I don't get babies.

I never have and I never will.

I don’t understand the allure.

They are essentially human beings who mumble, cry and crap their own pants. I don’t even particularly care for human beings that don’t do any of that stuff.

You know what they call homeless guys on the street who do the same thing?

They call them crazy people.

As a society we’ve made it a point to catch crazy people and toss them into mental institutions, and deservedly so.

It should never be acceptable for human beings of any age, to stew in their own still-warm feces – even if they happen to be involved in some sort of feces-stewing competition or something.

Speaking of which, if such a thing exists, it really shouldn’t.

Please don’t let it exist.

THE ART "EXPERIENCE."

I’m terrible when it comes to face-to-face social interaction. I really am. I’m awkward and weird, and I generally make people feel awkward and weird because of my awkward weirdness.

Did hearing me admit that make you feel awkward and weird about what you’re reading?

It did, didn’t it?

The proof’s in the pudding.

My ability to bring a party to a halt isn’t exactly a new development. I’ve been this way for a very long time and the chances of me ever being anything else are slimmer than, Calista Flockhart’s thighs or the idea that, Katy Perry will ever write a song that doesn’t make me want to chop her head off and store her boobs in my freezer.

Wait just one cotton pickin’ minute.

Did I just make a Calista Flockhart reference?

Wait one more cotton pickin’ minute.

Did I just say I wanted to chop off her head and store her boobs in my freezer?

Wait one last cotton pickin’ minute!

Did I just type the words “cotton pickin’” three times?

I bet you’re feeling pretty damn awkward and weird now.

Anyone that knows anything about me knows how utterly useless I am when it comes to situations in which human beings gather to do the things human beings do. It’s common knowledge. It’s also the reason I was so taken aback when my wife said the following to me over dinner one night:

“So…we’re doing this silent auction thing at school and I signed you up for an art experience with some of the kids.”

I nearly chocked on my fork of spaghetti. “What?”

“Oh, it’s nothing, Steven. You’ll meet the winners in the classroom and give them an art lesson. You can show them how to paint, or something. It’ll be fun. You’ll love it.”

I jabbed the fork into my brain.

Okay, I actually didn’t do that. I wanted to though.

It’ll be fun? I’ll love it?

Was this broad insane? Who the hell did she think she was married to? I don’t even have fun and love doing the things I actually have fun and love doing. I’m practically a Vulcan. I’m incapable of such emotions.

“Are you nuts? I’m not doing that.”

Instantly the expression on her face changed. It twisted into something ugly. It coiled and morphed into that angry wife-thing that wives everywhere do when they mean business. If you’re a man and you’re married, you know what I talking about. You’ve seen it before. It haunts your dreams and makes your genitals run for cover.

For some reason the name, John Bobbit popped into my head.

This was going to suck.

Two weeks later, I found myself in her classroom after school, waiting for the winners to show up and the art “experience” to begin.

Unlike John Bobbit, my penis remained firmly attached - loosely actually. Maybe dangly would be more appropriate? Whatever. What I’m basically trying to say is that it hadn’t been chopped off and tossed into the woods by a crazy woman.

I’d made the right choice.

Less than ten minutes later the kids arrived. There were four of them – all girls and all under the age of ten. My wife gathered the group around a table at the rear of the room and I proceeded to kill time by filling a few glasses of water for them to dip their paintbrushes in.

After I filled them once I poured them out and filled them again.

A quick glance at the clock told me I’d only wasted three minutes.

I emptied and filled the glasses again.

That killed another sixty seconds.

Damn it.

Why was I so nervous? They were just kids – snot-nosed little kids and nothing more. I was twice their size and in at least one case, three times! I couldn’t allow these kids to get the better of me. It was time to stop being such a sackless weirdo and grow a pair! It was time to knuckle up and be a man!

My hands were sweaty and my face flushed. I could feel their tiny little kid eyes watching me from across the room – staring at me and wondering why I was constantly refilling the same four plastic cups. They were talking in their little kid voices to each other – whispering. One of them laughed and another joined in.

Were they laughing at me?

I bet they were laughing at me.

Those, little punks.

That’s it! I’d had enough! I’d show them! I’d experience the crap out of that art “experience!” It was time to step up and knock this thing out of the park! It was time to point to the bleachers like, Babe Ruth and swing for the fences! It was time to channel my inner Kirk, and take on the Gorn despite being grossly overmatched!

It was time to stop making nerdy Star Trek references that were in no way helping my cause!

With my fully filled plastic cups I strode across the room with my chest puffed and my chin pointed north. I reminded myself once again that I was a grown-ass man and that my fear was idiotic. I needed to take charge! I needed to take control of my stupid brain and let it know exactly who was controlling whom!

I needed to fail miserably despite my bravado!

Wait. What?

Forget that last pat.

Barely five minutes into the “experience” and I was already a blubbering mess. I was sweating more than, John Candy in a, latex John Candy suit. Every sentence was a contradiction. My words were bumping and sliding into each other like drunken assholes in a mosh pit, molding and melding like glue and spurting from my mouth in mostly nonsensical grunts. Suddenly my hands wouldn’t work. For the first time in my life I couldn’t even draw.

Hell, I could barely hold my pencil.

Not only were these kids getting the better of me, they knew something was wrong. The puddle of perspiration on the desk below my head was a dead giveaway. The little girl with the wide eyes and confused look on her face across from me wasn’t helping matters any.

Her face was slimy. She kept smacking her lips and scratching her head, and dropping flakes of dandruff into the still wet paint below. Every once in a while her tongue would peek out from between her lips, extend upward and try it’s damndest to find its way into her nose.

She really needed to stop doing that.

In between my jittery pencil strokes and awkward burp-speak I could hear laughter coming from elsewhere in the room – from behind me. Though the muscles in my neck had stiffened to the point of being utterly useless long ago, I managed to spot my wife and one of her teacher friends standing in the doorway with wide smiles on their faces.

They were watching me suffer and they seemed to really be getting a kick out of it.

Wait one final cotton pickin’ minute.

This was all a set-up wasn’t it?

The little girl sitting beside me broke wind.

Being married is fantastic.