Now that I have the bare walls and foundation up around here and a few of you insane shoppers poking around and showing me what’s still broken, I’ve had a minute to think about the differences between the new site and the old one. Besides the fact that the new one is much more complicated to put together, there’s also another major difference: The old Madmann site was basically just a portfolio of my work, both serious and the weird shit I’ve shopped up for sites like Fark and Cracked.

The reason I have failed in past incarnations to do more than display my work is this: I am extremely aware of the fact that things that are put on the internet are there forever. For this exact reason, I don’t tweet, have a Facebook account, or anything like that.  I have, up until this point, been unwilling to display details about my life or, for that matter, to even really be myself on my own site. That ends now. I am at a point in my personal life where I no longer care what potential employers or the general public think about who I am, and if there are repercussions, I’m ready to deal with them.

So now I can make blog posts like this one, which actually should be called….

 

Who Wants To Talk About My Vasectomy?

 

 

Every word of this story is true. I had a vasectomy several years back while married to my first wife, because….well, I have kids. That’s the best advertisement for that service that there could possibly be. I’ll preface this story by saying that it was one of the best moves I’ve ever made. Money can’t buy the peace of mind I’ve felt when responding to later girlfriends who’ve told me they “might be pregnant ” by saying “Oh yeah? Who’s the father?”

I go in for the procedure, and for some reason I have a moment where I’m questioning the fact that I am actually paying someone money to slice my nutsack open. Prior to that, I’m pretty sure that I would have paid you money NOT to do that.

I’m led into the room where this is all going to take place, and immediately upon removing my pants, I am complimented on what a fine job I’ve done removing all the hair on my nuts. I didn’t really do it myself for the kudos. I just figured that doing it myself would be one less chance for…. ya know… someone to accidentally cut my dick off or something.

The doctor comes bopping into the room, whistling a jaunty tune like Uncle Remus. Guy’s like 90. I don’t know what exactly I was expecting…. people in hooded robes doing a Gregorian chant with candles all around or something…. I mean, come on, these are my nuts, can I get a little reverence? I was even less put at ease when he sat down between my thighs and said “Let’s get these things chopped!”.

The nurse comes around to my left side. She appears to be the doctor’s older sister. She smiles at me sweetly, takes my hand and says “If the pressure gets to be too much, just squeeze my hand.” I get an instant visual of me giving this woman my third-best hand squeeze, and watching as her hand explodes into a cloud of dust.

 In honor of my own grandmother, I resolve that I will vomit blood out my eyes before I apply the slightest pressure to this hand, which I conservatively estimate at more than 3 times the age of my nuts.

The procedure itself actually isn’t as painful as, say, attending a child’s school play, so I’ll spare you the actual gory details. Suffice to say, I made it to the end while only threatening to murder the doctor about seven times.

 I leave the room, thinking that at least the strange part is over. I then limp my way into the doctor’s office for my post-op instructions. The doctor starts rattling off all the joys that I can expect:

“Well, Mr. Mann… first off, your testicles are going to turn black & blue…” (He left off yellow, orange and a shade of greenish-brown I can’t identify)….. “You’ll probably walk around feeling like someone just kicked you in the nuts for about a week….” (Oh goodie. Nice to have something to look forward to.) “They’ll also likely swell up to about the size of baseballs, that’s to be expected…. also, you may notice some excessive bleeding from the groin area… ” (ALL bleeding from a man’s groin area is excessive, Doc…) “Don’t aggressively rub the spot it’s bleeding from, just dab it gently….” (Thanks for THAT tip, Doc. I don’t think the ball pain and ripped stitches would have tipped me off to that one)…. Again, I think all weirdness is behind me.

Then he closes with: “Now… if anything UNUSUAL happens…..”

Look, Doc. I don’t know what your balls are used to, but ALL that stuff is pretty unusual for mine. ALL of it. Yep.