"Keep goin' honey...it'll be okay just this once." --From the forthcoming book, "Impulsive sentences that end up costing you five hundred grand over your lifetime"
We've all heard the old line of, "a man thinks about sex every
seven seconds." Recently, I read an article saying this was
an urban myth-I couldn't agree more. It's way too conservative.
On the outside, men are a 1950's television show. We can be very normal looking, finely dressed, well groomed gentlemen with good jobs, the respect of our peers, and excellent manners. On the inside, however, we're the director's cut of the orgy scene in "Eyes Wide Shut." When even a small fraction of this perpetual mental undulation gets put into practice in the physical world, we end up with babies-- Lots and lots of babies.
What do you do if you don't want lots of babies? We're all aware of the many options, but what's the best one?
Kick saves and impractical ways
For most of us, abstinence is out. Lets face it, telling a man to abstain is like asking Carrot Top to get rid of the prop bag or asking Michael Moore not to touch the last slice of pizza in the fridge-Highly unlikely. Besides, even if you give abstinence a shot, do you really feel comfortable knowing that you're only one wink and three vodka tonics away from your mail carrier getting a hernia delivering all those coupons for "Huggies" and "Enfamil"?
When I was looking at options for birth control after our fourth child, some friends of ours suggested the natural "rhythm method," with which timing is everything, and effectiveness is nothing. The "rhythm" in this method must be that you have a baby every year, because they have five kids, and are expecting a sixth. The "Rhythm Method" book they gave me is now filed on my shelf next other tomes of similar usefulness, such as "Marrying the Perfect Alpha-Male" by Liza Minelli, and Courtney Love's "The Genteel Woman"
Condoms, if you're only using them for baby prevention, are an unsatisfying exercise in marital birth control. It's like eating cheesecake and leaving on the cellophane wrapper-- You know there's something good going on, but you can't quite tell what it is.
Then there are contraceptives that are to act as a sort of Dominik Hasek of the vagina, attempting to kick-save sperm from lighting up an egg. Diaphragms, jellies, and inserts of all sorts are, again, reliant upon the user's memory and understanding of the instructions, and therefore subject to horrendous error.
There are, of course, pills and patches for women. The catch is that the woman must remember to use these things. My wife forgets to turn off the coffee pot and pick up the dry cleaning half the time, so I wasn't comfortable going this route.
My neighbor got her tubes tied after their baby was born a year ago. This option would make me feel guilty, because every ounce of sacrifice and pain is placed on the woman. After a few kids, I figure that the woman should be able to see her husband in pain for a change. Be forewarned though, even if you do take your share of the responsibility and get a vasectomy, you will still be pointedly reminded that, "it's still nowhere near the pain of child birth, pal!"
That's what I ended up deciding to do-- get vasectomized. I remember that day three years ago like I got stabbed in the crotch this morning.
A day that will cringe in infamy
In the waiting room, I was so nervous that it caused my deodorant to have the staying power of Vanilla Ice. The stress was beginning to get to me. Whenever I'm nervous and forced to wait, my body makes peculiar movements. I was rubbing my forehead and chin so much that the guy across the room thought I was signaling for a double steal.
Looking for something to occupy my time, I reached for a couple of magazines and tried reading. I cracked open a dusty "Life" magazine. Did you know that Amelia Earhart is going to try to fly around the world? Gee, I hope it goes well-- And the issue of "People" was so old that it should have been called "Person".
There wasn't much interesting reading there, so I went to another table, but I couldn't get to it because the area was roped off. As it turned out, a team of Michigan State University archaeologists was carefully attempting to excavate a fossilized Readers Digest.
I was finally called in. As I entered the room, I observed the table with all the equipment on it. Scalpels, suction things, crosscut saws, drills and something resembling a stainless steel weed wacker. The room was a sado-masochistic "New Yankee Workshop."
Once I was on the table lying on my back, the doctor stood in between my legs and a nurse stood on each side of me. Apparently there was some "triangulation of crossfire" strategy that would be used-- A standard practice employed by medical professionals and assassins worldwide.
I closed my eyes as it happened. Frankly, thanks to the Valium that was holding my hand that morning, I don't remember much.
After the procedure was completed, I did what I always do on a nice summer afternoon-- Went home, writhed in pain, and shoved packages of frozen peas down my pants.
Sunday, bloody Sunday
After the vasectomy on Friday, there was some pain, but it was manageable. As the days wore on, the pain increased, but only slightly. The real shock was yet to come.
When I looked in the mirror on Sunday morning, what I saw still to this day keeps running through my head in grainy fashion, like a Zapruder film with pubic hair. There was a complete and utter devastation of the crotchial region. The only thing missing was the mushroom cloud.
There were no survivors, including my vas deferens. The target was taken out, but, unfortunately, there seemed to be enormous amounts of collateral damage.
I called the doctor on Monday morning to ask if what I was witnessing was normal, and if he'd performed the vasectomy with a rusty Garden Weasel. Not wanting to go through the rest of my life with my wife reacting to my nudity with a scream not heard since Janet Leigh's shower scene in "Psycho", I wanted to get this problem handled, lest I never be handled again.
Eventually, the swelling went down, but it moved at a snail's pace. Soon, the bloody, slow moving quagmire-- The "Western Front" of embattled genitalia-- Settled back down to normal.
Success!
For the last three years, we've had no more kids, which is a personal best for us. Thanks to the vasectomy, I can rest easy in the knowledge that I won't have children who have to check me out of the "Geezerly Pines Nursing Home" so I can attend their high school graduation, and I'll never have to refuse to give my daughter away at her wedding for fear that if I let go, I'd fall down and break a hip.
It really wasn't that bad, and now I don't feel the guilt of knowing my wife was put through unnecessary pain, have to worry if she remembered to take her pill, or have to wear a product that came out of the same factory that makes radial tires and faucet gaskets.
Whichever form of birth control you decide is best for you, just make sure it's effective. Remember, to err is human, to forgive while changing diapers at three in the morning-- impossible.
