One night while I was sleeping next to my wife who was pregnant with our second and last child, the quiet of the  night was shattered when she softly whispered in my ear, “After we have this baby you will have to get a vasectomy.”

A VASECTOMY!?  I lay quietly in the  bed and I tried to ignore that statement, after all, I should be sleeping.  She  knew that I heard her and she didn’t say another word because she knew that she had just planted a seed of her own.

Well she planted that seed on solid bedrock because I wasn’t going to do it.   I was thirty-seven years old and I  had never been under the knife and I was not going to let anyone turn me into a neutered dog.  Everyone says that a vasectomy does not change you.  How do they  know?  How does Spock know that he is still Spock and not a copy of Spock when the transporter pulls him off the Starship Enterprise?  Just ‘cause he says so?   Even though I didn’t take Debbie’s announcement seriously I was silently preparing my case for  the series of trials to come.

I brought this topic up with my  coworkers at lunch the following day.  Mark told me that he had a vasectomy years ago during his first marriage and he can’t wait to get another one.  He  wasn’t kidding.  Mark had a vasectomy seven years ago and when he remarried his new wife told him that she wanted to have children and she demanded that he gets his tubes sewn back together.  Mark told us, “I had a Korean doctor and when he  cut my cords he told me that there was no way that I would ever get anyone  pregnant again.  When I went to get my tubes reattached to one ball, the doctor  had to reach pretty far up inside of me to get my dangling cord.   Now my ball rides tight up against my inseam and it is very uncomfortable and there is no  room for movement.   It hurts just to put on my underwear!”

Norm told me that he is done having kids and there is no way that he will walk into a doctor’s office and have a  vasectomy.  It’s not that he was opposed to it philosophically; he just couldn’t  tolerate any kind of operation.   He has an agreement with his wife and his doctor; if he is in any kind of an accident or if he has a heart attack, then he  will instruct the doctor to cut his cords since he was already unconscious.  How  crazy is that Norm?  Do you really think the doctor is going to clear the artery in your heart and then reach down and give you a vasectomy?

Mike told us that he had a vasectomy and it was no big deal.  The worst part was going back six months later,  jacking off into a cup and handing it to the nurse.   He said that it wouldn’t have been so bad if the nurse could have spit his sperm into the cup instead.

Over the course of Debbie’s pregnancy she grew as big as a blimp.  We were certain that she was going to have twins or triplets.  On more than one occasion her pediatrician told her that she would most likely need to have a c-section.  Over and over again he told her c-section, c-section, c-section.   When the vasectomy discussion came up again we made a deal; if she has to have a c-section then she would get her tubes tied.  Otherwise I would go under that knife and have the vasectomy.  It was a sucker bet for me.  A sure thing!  Her doctor had been singing the c-section  song for months.

As it turned out, Debbie had only one  child in there and she delivered without a c-section and it was an easier birth than when she had our gargantuan son.   I was hoping that Debbie forgot about our agreement.

For the next six months Debbie reminded me that I needed to go and get fixed and she wanted to know when I was  going to make the appointment.    “Do you really want me to continue to take the  pill?  The pill is known to cause cancer.   Do you want me to get cancer?”  Cancer, jeeze!   How can you argue with that?   That was one of those things that was not going to go away, so I finally gave in and I made the phone call.

The process takes two appointments and the first appointment is an office session with the doctor who is trying to  see if you really know what you are doing.  “Do you really want to have a  vasectomy?  Do you realize that you will never be able to have children again?”   Sure, I want you to cut into my ball sack and hack away at my manhood. It’s too bad that I can only do this once in my lifetime.  (I had forgotten about Mark).

I made the appointment for the operation and it was the fastest three month waiting period that I ever had in my life.  As soon as I hung up the phone after I made the appointment I fell into a wormhole in the tender fabric of the universe and it took me from March to May before I knew what happened to me.

I had discovered that there were two Filipino nurses who assisted the doctor and they were famous for making fun of  the size of every man’s penis.  From their point-of-view it was supposed to be light-hearted fun and a distraction from the job at hand but I didn’t want any part of their nonsense because I didn’t think that getting a vasectomy was very funny.  I was also afraid of becoming aroused while they shaved me and washed me.  The shaving part was also very scary.  Many years ago I received a cut under my chin while playing football.   I had a full beard at the time and the nurse hacked at my throat with a razor as if she had a machete and she was clearing the jungle while being chased by a wild boar.   I didn’t want the Filipino women lathering me up and gently shaving my scrotum any more than I wanted them to hack at me like the football nurse so I shaved myself.  I don’t know why men commit suicide by slashing their wrists when all they have to do is attempt to shave their own balls.  I butchered myself pretty good and if I had used a straight razor I could have inadvertently administered my own vasectomy.

On the day of the operation Debbie volunteered to take the day off work so she could drive me to the clinic.  As far as I was concerned she had already driven me there and I didn’t want her to do it with a car. They don’t let you drive after one of those operations and after hearing how easy and painless the procedure was, I wondered why they would  say that.   Debbie went to work that day and I took a cab to the clinic.

It was a big, gray and black, cold, ominous-looking building that was adjacent to the hospital.  The clinic was in the basement.   The woman at the desk treated everyone like she spent the last twenty years working for the Department of Motor vehicles.  She wasn’t friendly and she was downright mean.

“Ray Costello!”, she yelled.   She never even looked up from her desk.  I walked up to her and she handed me a number like I was waiting in line at the deli.   “Get a laundry basket from that pile over there, get a gown from that white sack on the floor, and go into the room behind me.   There are curtained stalls in there.   Find the one that matches the number that I gave you, take your clothes off, put them in the basket and wait for someone to come and get you!”

What a BITCH!  She should at least be  happy because she works in a place that tortures men.  I had a mind to say something nasty to her but you wouldn’t do that to people behind the counter at a fast food restaurant because you don’t want a hocker loaded into your sandwich and you don’t do it at a vasectomy clinic or you may find yourself wondering for the rest of your life what that extra thing is that you feel in your stitched-up ball sack.

I went through the stainless steel swinging doors into a room with about twenty little dressing rooms with curtains for doors.  I could hear crying behind some of them.  I found my little area  and I tried to close the curtain but there was a little crack on each side because the curtain wouldn’t hang straight.  I still had a little dignity left.

I took off all my clothes, put them into the basket, put on a thin, pink, wrinkled gown and I sat on the cheap plastic molded chair with my basket of clothes in my lap waiting for those “funny” Filipino nurses to come and get me.   I had a surprise for them.  Since I already knew that they were going to make fun of my penis, I was going to really give them something to talk about.   Before I left for this clinic, I drew two eyes and a nose on the end of my dick.   The “mouth” was already there and it looked a little like a helmeted Darth Vader.

As I sat there with my lacerated ball sack and my little Jedi knight, I heard one of the nurses call out a woman’s  name.  I peeked out through the side of my curtain and I saw a man and a woman walk across the room with a nurse.   The man was carrying the basket but the woman was wearing the gown.   I thought that was odd.  Maybe this place doesn’t only do vasectomies.

Another woman’s name was called. I peered out into the room and I saw a man with a newspaper following a woman in a gown and she was carrying her own basket.   What the heck was going on here?  I saw this same odd grouping of a fully clothed man following a woman wearing the hospital gown three more times.

“Ray Costello!   Ray Costello!”  I had just heard how my name sounds with a Filipino accent.  I pushed the curtain  aside and followed the smiling Filipino nurses to an operating room.  There was a table in the center of the room with stirrups, pads, metal bars and a big mirror hovering over the top.   It looked a lot like some of the health club exercise equipment that I don’t know how to use.  One nurse came to me and took my clothesbasket and she left the room.  The other one laughed and said,  “You have gown on backwards.   Take off!   Take off!”

“Backwards?”  I shrieked. “Every person that I have ever seen in a hospital has had the slit in the back!”

“You expect doctor to lift up gown like dress?  Take off!   Take off!”

I stood there while she pulled my gown off and I found myself standing in that room naked while she fumbled with the sleeves.  She turned me around and she held up the gown like she was my butler and she was helping me put on a smoking jacket.  The other nurse came back into the room and they helped me up on the operating table.  Once they got my feet in the stirrups they opened my gown and they saw little Darth Vader  staring them in the face.  “Oh look!   A little mouse!   Hee!hee!hee!”

“Mouse?  That’s no mouse, that’s Darth Vader.  The one nurse came back from the sink with a small bucket.  “You can’t have ink on your penis for this operation.  She grabbed it with her full hand as if she was getting a good grip on a screwdriver and she started scrubbing my head with a coarse white brillo pad.   “Yow! Ow!  Ow! Ow!  Hey,  STOP!!  STOPPP!!!”

“I must get ink off.”, she giggled.

“Well then wash it off, don’t sand it off!!”

She was a bit gentler as she removed the ink.  I didn’t have to worry one bit about getting aroused and embarrassing myself.

“You cut yourself.   Oh, you cut yourself many times.”

“Yeah, I thought I would save you the effort.”

They lathered me up, washed me down, dried me off and they called in the doctor. I could not believe it, but while  the doctor was preparing for the operation, the nurses were tying me down.  They secured my neck, arms, chest and two places on my legs and thighs with heavy leather straps and steel buckles.

The doctor leaned over, looked me in the eye and said, “Are you sure you want to go through with this?”

“I’m not sure I had a choice anymore but it was good that they strapped me down or I might have been tempted to change my mind.

The doctor sat between my legs and he reached up and adjusted the mirror that hung over the table.  “Can you see all  right?”  I looked up into the mirror and I could see my glowing pink, but impeccably clean, penis and the doctor holding a syringe. “Wait a minute!    Whoa!   I don’t want to watch this!”

He turned the mirror away and he said “You will feel a little pressure as I numb you up a bit.”  He took that needle and he drove it through my scrotum and into one of my balls.   Every muscle in my body shrieked.  He pulled it out and he went back in again.  He pulled it out and went in again.  He pulled it out and went into the other ball.  Again and again and again.   Now I know why they tied me down!   He finally stopped and I don’t know what he was doing.  Who told him to describe the needle procedure as “feeling a little pressure?”  Christopher Reeve?   It really hurt!   I’ll tell you what it feels like.  Men, strip naked, lay on your cold kitchen table, grab your sack and push a sewing needle a couple of inches into your ball.  Do it about four or five times for each testicle.  That is what it feels like.  That  is not pressure; it’s pain and medieval torture.   Why didn’t I get knocked out for this or at least get a couple of valiums?   I have described this experience to many other men over the years.  Some of them actually put on their tough-guy attitude and said, “Hey man, just take the pain!”  Hey man yourself!!  I am not trying out to be a fucking Navy Seal!

The doctor hadn’t even started yet and I was exhausted.   I heard him doing stuff but he hadn’t touched me yet.   After a period of time he said, “Do you feel this?”  I felt it, whatever he was doing, but I told him I didn’t feel any pain.  He probably clamped a battery jumper cable on my sack but I didn’t feel it.  He said, “Good, let’s  begin.”

I lay there like an antelope in a field that had been run down by a lion and it was eating him alive.  I knew I  wasn’t going anywhere so I was patient while I got eaten alive on that table.  I watched the smiling Filipino women as they watched the doctor do his thing.   At one point he grabbed one of my cords and when he yanked on it I thought that the other end of it was attached to my eyeball.  “I am now going to cauterize the wound.”  There was some flashing of light, some crackling sound and I saw smoke.  I was smelling my own burning flesh.   “Ok, now we are going to do the other one.”   The other one?  I thought he was all done.  “Eeeeeeoooowwww!!!!  HOLD IT!   HOLD IT! HOLD IT!!!   That hurt!”  He picked up his syringe and he  stabbed me a few more times in the balls.

I felt him stitching up my scrotum and I knew the worst was over.  “You cut yourself pretty good down here.  You should have let Bebeng and Mameng do it for you.”

The doctor finished, they unstrapped me and they helped me off the table.  The doctor took his gloves off, said “Good luck.” And he walked out of the room.  Luck?  What does luck have to do with a  vasectomy?

Bebeng and Mameng held each of my arms and they walked me out of the operating room.   I told them I didn’t need  help.  Now I was being macho. “It’s ok, I’m fine, just tell me where my  clothes are.”   We went into a large waiting room and it was filled with kids, moms, dads, some elderly people and some young women and I was the only one walking through there wearing a gown.   My nurses directed me to another curtained area on the other side of the waiting room and they told me that my  basket was in there.   I closed the curtain but some little ethnic kids kept putting their heads under my curtain and laughing at me.  I was afraid that one of them was going to yank the curtain off it’s rings so the whole waiting room could see me stitched and naked.  I quickly got dressed and as I took off my  gown I noticed that it had a big, soaking splotch of blood right where my butt was, and I had walked through the waiting room like that.  I needed to get out of there.  One of the nurses ran me through a checklist of what I should do over the next few days and then she called me a cab.

Usually I talk to cab drivers but I  didn’t feel up to it that day.   I lived only a half mile from the clinic so there weren’t a lot of uncomfortable quiet moments.  As soon as the cabbie dropped me off, I defiantly hopped into my car.  I felt pretty good and I realized why they don’t let you drive after a vasectomy; you’re supposed to be blink drunk!  I felt pretty good as I drove on down the road to Mr. Beef.   I  grabbed a few sandwiches and then I drove over to the video store to check out a couple of movies.   While I was walking down the foreign film aisle, the  painkiller wore off instantly, like a boulder rolling off a cliff.   I found  myself almost crawling toward the door.   To make matters worse, I drive a stick shift.  I felt like calling a cab, or an ambulance.  I made it home and I laid on the living room floor for the remainder of the day.

Epilogue

Way back in 1970 I went to a late night movie theater with a couple of friends and we saw our first foreign film.  The hero was fooling around with some ugly hairy guy’s girlfriend.  At the end of the movie, a bunch of thugs chased the hero into a deserted boatyard.  A  bunch of guys held him against the side of a beached upside down boat while another guy yanked off our hero’s pants.  Something was said in Italian and one of the thugs crushed our hero’s balls against the wooden boat with a hefty thrust of his rifle butt.  In the last scene we saw the hero with his expressionless face lifelessly pressed against the inside window of a bus as it drove away.   I’ve wondered about a couple of things since that movie.   First, why did the hero lose?   That doesn’t happen in movies; at least it doesn’t happen in American movies.   After seeing many foreign films I found out that Europeans like to be  depressed.  Second, what the heck did that feel like to get your balls smashed  against the side of a boat with a rifle butt?   Now I know the answer to that one too..