Dr. Funny

Listen, this post really isn’t for those with weak stomachs. I don’t even really want to write it, but after Snip, Vasectomy in pictures, and V Day, I figured I should close it out. You’ve been warned.

I did what I was supposed to do.

I shaved my netherregions such that I looked like a baby elephant. I found a pair of Danish underwear I bought in 2005 when my luggage got lost on the way to Copenhagen. The drawers subbed for the jock strap I was supposed to bring for post-op support. The Danes like to keep their junk tight, I’ve found. I brought the wife to drive me home. I arrived on time wearing an ironic t-shirt. In the waiting room sat a woman shoving McDonalds into her mouth, a lady who wouldn’t stop talking, and your humble then-still-fertile correspondent.

I didn’t have many requests. A gentle touch, good drugs, a couple of days off. Beyond that, all I really wanted to avoid was a hot woman serving as my nurse. Within seconds of my sitting down, Aphrodite in scrubs stepped into the waiting room. Her eyes scanned the room as if to say, “Who ordered the blonde with the side of perfect thighs?”

My wife laughed out loud.

Well, damn.

For a few seconds, all I could think about was this girl standing over me and saying, “Don’t worry, this is going to be a very warm jelly. It won’t be cold at all. Hey, would you like a back rub?”

Fate wouldn’t be so cruel, though. Instead, twenty-minutes of hanging out with Nurse Mother Robe-Tying Teresa later, I was flat on a table with my robe pulled to waist high while I talked about dogs with another nurse who reminded me a lot of Joan Cusack circa Say Anything.

“This is going to be cold,” she said and proceeded to rub ice cold Betadine in a place a woman has never, ever rubbed ice cold Betadine.

On the other side of the wall, a construction project must have been underway, because a man with a hammer slammed his tool into the concrete as hard as he could, over and over and over. I put my head back on the pillow and thought, “If I mention that to people later, they’ll think I’m just speaking in an extended metaphor.”

When I looked back up, it was like Ms. Cusack was painting me for Burning Man. I was cold and thinking, “Wasn’t there supposed to be a warming jelly? What’s Betadine and do you actually ice it down? What’s your brother John like?”

By the time the doctor arrived, I looked like a bullseye, which, in retrospect may have been the point. I was just happy to have Joan’s hands somewhere other than around a part of me where few people spend a lot of time.

I’ll spare you most of the details–the cauterization, the smoke, the needle and thread–but feel compelled to mention what happened toward the end.

I’ll admit I was a little curious about the procedure and the doctor noticed me glancing around.

“You want to see it?” he asked.

And before I thought too much more, the doc held up a pair of tweezers with what appeared to be a small white worm at the end. “That’s what I cut out,” he said.

“It looks like a maggot,” I said.

“I actually save them,” the doctor said. “When I get enough, I go fishing and bait my hook with them.”

Woah, woah, woah.

I put my head back. I’m basically naked. My manparts are painted and look like the result of some bad European performance art. I’m cut open in two fairly conspicuous places.

And this guy is making jokes?

Before I could laugh, he said, “There’s another urologist joke. You want to hear it?”

In the past half an hour, a woman old enough to be my mother had seen my bare ass while she tied a robe on me, Joan Cusack had molested me in a way that only my wife should, and I listened to a guy use power tools while I was waiting to have a vasectomy. Of-fucking-course I want to hear a joke.

“People wonder what we do with all the foreskins we end up with,” the doc said. “Best thing to do is make a briefcase out of them. Then you can rub on them and they grow into a suitcase.”

With that, he sewed me up and bid me adieu.

“Alright,” Nurse Joan said. “Time to clean you up.”

She used cold water.