"Does proactive and aggressive translate to excited?"
"Not if you're scheduling a vasectomy."
19 Dead Puppies Times 19 Dead Puppies
"When you arrive for the consultation, ask if they make
an incision."
"Oh, you mean like non-invasive."
"Yah."
"How would they do that, kick me in the junk until they
shrivel up and fall off?"
"No. It's called a no-scalpel vasectomy."
"You mean, like they don't slit my bag?"
"They have a tool they use to puncture the skin between
your penis and your testicles. The same tool is used to pull
out the tubes and crimp them and cauterize them or some
shit like that."
"I feel better already."
"When you have your vasectomy, do you have to deny
your religion? Do you have to tell your priest?"
"Why the hell would I do that? He would just tell my
mother-in-law."
"Did you know they cauterize the ends of the snipped
vas deferens before they stitch you back up?"
"Stop it! Just talking about it is painful! Whalen already
just can not leave me alone about the procedure I am about
to experience. He had a vasectomy when he was 23 years
old, almost 25 years ago, and he thinks that things have not
changed."
"He probably just wants you to think that."
"He is even convinced that I will have to endure the
oldest, fattest, and homeliest nurse they can fi nd to shave
my sack. Whalen is successful in giving me anxiety, but I
am still going through with it."
"Ya know, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have a fat-ugly
nurse shaving you. At least that way, you wouldn't have an
erection, and another woman calling you."
"What makes you think she wouldn't call me?"
"Fear of rejection?"
"I'll take that as a compliment."
I get off work at 2 p.m., and I am scheduled to show
up for check-in at 2:15. Turning in my inmate urinalysis
specimens at the NSP clinic has me running a few minutes
late, so I call the urology clinic to let them know I am a few
minutes behind schedule. I am the last procedure of the day
for Dr. Sushil Lacy, and he is probably ready to call it a day's
work. Lacy is the same doctor that performed Exstrom's
procedure 13 years ago. My boss has an eight-year-old son
now. You do the math.
If you knew what you were doing, you would never buy a
car that was built on a Friday afternoon. People just do not do
their best work. With this knowledge, why would you ever
schedule a vasectomy at 2:45 on a Friday? Fucking Whalen
keeps putting the seed of bad thoughts in my head.
When I arrive, fi ve minutes late, the staff acts as if I
have not inconvenienced them at all. They are not rushing
to catch up. I am given a key to a locker immediately, and
instructed to change into the gowns provided. Exiting the
locker room, I fi nd a cute young nurse waiting for me, and
I am almost hoping she is not the one who gets the honor of
shaving my privates. Hopefully, she is only processing me
in and doing some of the paper work. As luck would have
it, she also leads me into the operating room, where a few
other cute young ladies are waiting with apparatus designed
to prepare me for surgery.
I lay on the table, and before I can even fi nish shifting into
my comfort zone, two of the young ladies remove my gown
and begin touching my junk. Immediately I begin to conjure
up my best images of dead puppies while simultaneously
attempting to decipher 19 times 19 in my head. One nurse
has a safety razor in her right hand, while the other two
"position" my things to facilitate her work.
Desperately, I am trying to distract myself and not think
to myself that there are three women studying my stuff, but I
am not having much luck. The chub begins to form as blood
rushes to my penis. One of the nurses without the razor in
her hand must have noticed, because as my member began
to roll to the side with the most blood, she applied the coldest
betadine solution ever produced. I think it was frozen prior
to my arrival.
They were not fi nished prepping me. As the one continued
the betadine freeze treatment, the other advised the one with
the razor of the locations that were not completely shaven.
What the fuck is 19 times 19 anyway? It seemed that my
penis never got so much attention. When the three ladies
completed their task, Dr. Sushil Lacy entered the room. He
was a short man of Indian descent (Not Native American,
but the country of India.) and had the tightest mustache on
the planet. I have never seen facial hair so well groomed.
He had the hand strength and build of a watch-maker, and I
was glad. After all, he was about to work with something I
hoped he viewed as delicately.
Dr. Lacy claimed that I was about to feel something,
"This will feel like the dentist, only not in the same place."
I braced myself for a shot of lidocaine in the nuts, because
if anything down there feels remotely close to my dental
experiences, it can not be enjoyable.
"Doctor, oh my, you should be aware.he has three."
"Why is the last patient on a Friday the hardest one?"
"Cause you're tired and you don't give a shit, it's not
supernatural."
"I think I read that in Orbiting The Giant Hairball."
"No, it was in a DiCaprio movie, I think."
The feeling resembled a fi ngernail touching my scrotum.
I hardly felt the lidocaine shot at all, but I wound up with
two stitches in three places that took two weeks to heal. I
also left the building with two business cards in my pants
pockets that I would discover later.
One morning at work, just eight days after the surgery,
I lowered my underwear to urinate. The act of lowering my
underwear made me well aware that the miniscule woundweeping
had super-glued my sack to my underwear and I just
pulled out the stitches on one side. I asked my supervisor,
Joann Kinney, to call the shift supervisor and see if I could
comp out (take accumulated time off) and go home. That
call produced a negative response, since she had already
informed a previous caller that they could not depart. When
I asked Kinney to make the call, I thought we were fat on
staff and that it would not even be questioned. I also had
not realized the discomfort that would soon follow from the
pulling of the stitches. I made another call shortly after the
failed attempt to get me removed from the facility.
As I entered Whalen's control station, I quickly informed
him what I was going to do, and pleaded with him to not
laugh out loud while I was on the phone. He agreed not to
laugh, but in hindsight, I should have asked that he not do
anything to make me laugh.
"Lieutenant Andrzejewsky" answered the shift
supervisor.
"Hey LT, this is Caseworker Batiste. I need to fi ll you in
on my situation, and why I need to leave today." Whalen is
just looking at me at this point, probably wondering quickly
what he can do to make me lose it.
"OK."
"I realize that I had Kinney call earlier to use my comp
time, but she did not fully realize the need for me to depart.
You see, I had a vasectomy a week ago, and I just blew some
stitches."
Whalen began to moan painfully in the background. I
had to turn away so the visual of him holding his sack did
not contribute to my need to laugh.
"I am having some discomfort. If there is anyway you
can get me out of here, I would be greatly appreciative."
Feeding off my comments, Whalen is now mimicking
someone giving head.
"Oh fuck, get out of here. Take sick time or comp time,
arrange that with your supervisor when you come back, but
get out of here."
For Whalen's benefi t, and to prove to him that I could
take it, I stated, "Ma'am, if you need proof, I saved my
stitches. I taped them down to this date in my organizer."
"Are you shittin' me Batiste?"
"No, Ma'am."
"Well hey, if anybody asks, I guess you are prepared. I
think your credibility is okay here. Now go home."
"Should I wait 'til count clears?"
"Batiste, get the fuck out of here before I change my
mind!"
As I am leaving the parking lot, I get a strange number
coming up on my cell phone.
"Hello."
"Hi, Hector?"
"This is Heck."
"You don't know me, but I took your number out of our
medical records. I hope you don't mind.pause.could you
meet me somewhere?"
"Who is this?"
"Oh, I'm sorry, my name is Jenny. I was one of your
nurses at the urology clinic."
"Did something come up on one of my tests?"
"Well, no, but I was one of the nurses shaving you.in
preparation for surgery, and I was hoping that we could get
together for a drink.or something? It's been eight days;
you should be healed up enough."
