Reid About It

This time of year always reminds me of what I did for myself, and for my family two years ago. I gave the gift that keeps on giving.

I had a vasectomy.

I was married for almost ten years when I had my daughter, and she's a beautiful, smart, incredibly challenging child. I'm a small family guy, and I felt like my life was complete with her. I always told my wife that we had our first child for her, and we wouldn't have the next one for me.

Three years I told that joke, and she never found it funny even once.

When we decided in 1998 to think about children, we decided not to decide about not having a child. Basically, we pulled the goalie and whatever happened, happened.

What happened was I teed up a shot from the blue line and scored on my first attempt, so we've been understandably paranoid ever since.

Anyway, I learned something I'd like to pass along to all prospective patients. Something financial to keep in mind.

When you buy the first vasectomy, the second one is free.

Yep. First one didn't take. Apparently my groin has the mutant healing powers of Wolverine, because my boys were stronger than ever after the first round of surgery. Fertile as the Nile Basin, I was still.

So to sum up, I spent not only Christmas, but also a week of spring camped out in front of a television with a bag of frozen peas sitting between my legs. I looked like one of Norman Rockwell's lesser known paintings, "Christmas With The Numbing Cold 'Pon My Crotch."

Anyway, I went through the process twice. And it was actually worse the second time, for some reason. And also, when I went back for my second time, it sure seemed like there were a lot more people on the other end of me than the first time. And it seemed as if several weren't even wearing scrubs or masks or anything.

Onlookers aside, the strangest part of having a vasectomy doesn't come until weeks later. That's when you need to bring them a sample for analysis.

Yeah, I'm just going to let that one set in for a while.

One morning, six weeks after your surgery, you wake up with a doctor's perscription to masturbate. You are a man on a mission, with a delivery to make. Enjoy the morning, fellas. Never again will you not only have the freedom, but for once in your life, you are fully sanctioned under the law.

That's the understandable part. What comes next is a bit strange. That's when you have to fill a cup full of your warm Johnny's and Suzi's, go to your car and put it in your cupholder, and drive it downtown to the lab where you will hand it over to a woman you've never met, and who will take it from you like you're old friends.

That's an uncomfortable moment, in part because you know they have to have heard all of the jokes before.

"Can you fill this for me?"

Uh...from here? No. But I'll be glad to bring it back later. How far away from you is considered polite before I bring it back? Is the waiting room okay, or should I go out in the hall, the restroom, the elevator, or the cross town bus? Would it be better if I waited until tonight to see what's on Cinemax?