I'll Mature When I'm Dead (12 page)

Recently I went shopping for two items:

These items may seem unrelated to you. But certain men, upon reading that list, will wince when they recognize these as the items that you need when you get a . . .

 

 

 

The frozen peas are to minimize the swelling in your personal manliness zone. The jockstrap is to keep you from dangling. After a vasectomy—trust me—you do
not
want to dangle.

Not to sound boastful, but: I went with a size large jockstrap. It brought back vivid memories of gym class at Pleasantville High School, where we male students were required to wear jockstraps so that our larger classmates could use us as human slingshots by grabbing our elastic strap from behind, pulling it back several feet, and releasing it to cause the Twang of Pain.

Shopping for peas was trickier, because the supermarket had such a large selection.

“These are good,” said my wife, holding a bag of Green Giant Steamers Sweet Peas, a premium brand.

“I’m not going to
eat
them,” I said. “I’m going to put them on my b***s.”
²⁰

In the end I went with the Birds Eye Spring Garden Peas. I recommend them, if you’re a man who is getting a vasectomy. But before you take this major step, you should get answers to some important medical questions, starting with: Are you
insane
?

No, really, you should have some information, such as: What, exactly, happens to you in a vasectomy? I can answer this question, thanks to a helpful pamphlet I got from my urologist, titled
VASECTOMY: Permanent Birth Control for Men
, which I read as carefully as I could, considering that I had my eyes closed.

Based on this research, I would say that the best way to understand a vasectomy is to compare human reproduction to the New York City transit system, with Manhattan as the penis. In normal reproduction, the sperm cells originate in the testicles, represented by Brooklyn and Queens, then proceed via the vas deferens, represented by the Brooklyn Bridge and Queens-Midtown Tunnel, to Manhattan, where they join up with the seminal fluid, manufactured by the seminal vesicles and the prostate gland, represented by Staten Island. The sperm cells then travel through a long tube called the urethra, represented by the IRT Broadway Local line, exiting Manhattan at the tip and being deposited in the female vagina, represented by Van Cortlandt Park in the Bronx.

In a vasectomy, the doctor severs the conduits from Brooklyn and Queens, leaving the sperm cells trapped in the outer boroughs, where they eventually die because there are no decent nightclubs. Vasectomy is a safe, effective, and reliable procedure, and there is absolutely no reason to be afraid of it, except that

 

 

 

Medically, this is no big deal. It’s an outpatient procedure. When it’s done, you simply get up and walk out. Recovery takes just a couple of days. Most men experience only minor discomfort. Nevertheless, if you’re a man considering taking this step, you need to reflect upon the fact that if you get a vasectomy,

 

 

I can hear you veteran women readers going: “You think that’s bad? A little
hole
? Until you’ve had a baby you have NO IDEA what it means to experience discomfort in the privates.”

OK, on behalf of men, I will stipulate to you women that childbirth is not only very painful, but also a clear violation of the laws of physics. But you have to understand that we men have a very special relationship with our testicles. They are the most sensitive and vulnerable organs we have, and we are very protective of them because of vivid memories of the various times when we took a hard shot to the cubits and spent several excruciating minutes writhing on the ground, curled up like jumbo shrimp, wishing that a medical caregiver would come along and shoot us in the head.