A friend recently became the proud father of a brand new bouncing baby vasectomy.
Do you have any idea how much it hurts me to write that? Well, you guys do …
Hate to type “vasectomy” right there in the first paragraph where everyone can see it. Tried to bury it somewhere down in here but wanted you to know right off the bat that we were dealing the serious stuff today. So there’s the V-word, right at the beginning, sticking out like a sore, well, thumb.
Anyway, my friend’s you-know-what is one week old today. However, he has aged considerably more than seven days.
A young man Louisiana born and bred and the father of three sons, his personal breeding habits ended last Thursday in Memphis, where he now lives. He called me last Monday to proclaim The Upcoming Event. Misery loves company.
My first question was the obvious one: “Why?”
“Not wanting four kids in my home,” he said. “Three (boys) is about three more than you need. I’m willing to take a little bloodshed for lack of one more baby.”
After he and his wife decided this was the way to go, they had to find a doctor. They’ve lived in Memphis less than six months, hardly enough time to establish any sort of meaningful relationship with a urologist.
“You can ask people who works on their care or maybe, ‘Hey, who cuts your hair?’” he said. “But you don’t just walk up to somebody and say, ‘By the way, who’s your urologist?’”
So he did the logical thing. He looked in the Yellow Pages.
“Geography is a big thing,” he said. “I found the one closest to my house.
“I called and asked the receptionist to tell me a little about the doctor, you know, not that it matters, but I was just wondering. Keep in mind I was just playing this whole thing by ear, no pun intended.”
He expected her to say something reassuring, like the doctor graduated magna cum laude from the University of Tennessee and was first in his class in Vasectomy 401. Instead, this is exactly what she said:
“Well, he started this practice 19 years ago — and he’s nuts about Corvettes. Probably has 15 Corvettes. Maybe 20.”
“For some reason,” my friend said, “that didn’t exactly put me at ease. I mean, we’re not talking about changing the oil in my car here. Plus she used the word ‘nuts.’ Made me uncomfortable.”
Maybe a bit too cavalier.
She also told him he’d be able to drive himself home.
“She told me it was kind of like when you go to the dentist and your gums are numb,” he said. “Needless to say, I’m starting to lose a little confidence in my urologist selection by now. I mean, she’s comparing my gums to … you know what I’m trying to say.”
Well, he survived. Although FCC rules prohibit me from describing the actual procedure here, I can share some of the during-the-vasectomy conversation. For instance, at one point he thought he was going to faint.
“The nurse looked at me and said that people feel that way all the time, but it’s just from the Novocain and the pulling,” he told me. “I told her — barely— ‘No, ma’am, it’s just the pulling. Novocain’s got nothing to do with it.’ After that, they started running cold drinks in there to me.”
I guess to pass the time, he told the doctor his insurance company had said his $470 rate for The Procedure was a little high. The doctor disputed that, saying it was probably the cheapest rate in town.
“I wanted to ask, ‘Who are you, the Wal-Mart of urologists?’” our luckless friend said. “What does this guy do, put on a disguise and go price other doctors? But I didn’t say anything; shoot, I couldn’t say anything. And I was sort of in a position where I didn’t want to make him too mad.”
In a strange twist of circumstance, our cat had a similar operation last week. This makes him no longer a tomcat — only a consultant.
The cat’s name is Jingle Bell. We may change it to Silent Night.
- Springtime, 1995
Contact Teddy at teddy@latech.edu