My Date with Sparky

My Date with Sparky

Alright, Dear Readers, I get the message, stop with the emails. Too much hard science and misty angst makes Tripp a dull blogger. Okay, today I am in the mood for some humor, and I am in the mood for some fun.

Gather round, boys and girls. Please come in close. Closer. Leave room for the little ones. Everyone comfy? Good.

I would like to tell you the story of the day when Tripp “Manned up and met Mr. Sparky.”

Now before we start with the story, I want to make sure that we all understand the details and the background and the context for this story. Sally, please explain to Timmy what context means, but do it quietly. Thank you.

As we all know, the purpose of life is to create more life. And as we also all know, God has made us so that we are nudged, or even compelled, to serve our purpose, and because our God is a good God, our God uses positive reinforcement instead of negative reinforcement to compel us. Let us thank our God for this. “Thanks God! Thank you for making us horny!!”

Now in addition to giving us the compulsion to make more life, God also gives us a brain to realize that there must be balance in everything. Some people call this balance "harmony," some call it the "yin and the yang," and, yes, Little Timmy? Do you know what we call it? . . . That’s right, Little Timmy, we do call it common sense. You are a smart boy.

So after Tripp lived long enough to reproduce, meaning he lived long enough to create life, much life, nearly too much life, Tripp’s brain told him that he had also created a debt load, a very large and a very heavy debt load that would take years to pay off. Since Tripp was no dummy, having, after all, survived long enough to reproduce, he decided that his baby-making days were over. Mrs. Tripp agreed with this, and she agreed with it so much that they discussed all the possible options, meaning Mrs. Tripp said “Just get a vasectomy.”

I am pretty sure that somewhere in the feminist handbook, after the entry stating that “All men must now be in the delivery room during their wife’s labor to view, first hand, the holy hell they have put their wives through,” there is another entry that states “In matters of castration it is the MAN who MUST undergo the, as I used to call it, “snip snip,” and if your man balks at this remind him of the holy hell of labor that you experienced, and remind him that unlike tubal ligation, which is a MAJOR surgery, and which may lead to major legal litigation, a vasectomy is just minor surgery, so trivial that it is often done as an outpatient procedure.

Did you see that? Tubal ligation is MAJOR surgery, but a vasectomy is just a minor procedure, nothing more, really, than getting one’s hair cut. A snip here, a snip there, and off one goes, to the Opera, or places like that.

Since I am a feminist, I totally agreed with this. Well, I also agreed because Mrs. Tripp refused to go back on the pill, and it was either the snip snip or condoms, and I dislike condoms. They are too tight. And too short. Heh heh.

So I made the appointment at the most excellent (and conveniently located) Mayo Clinic, second in the nation only to John’s Hopkins. Curse you John’s Hopkins!

At my appointment the first thing I found out is this: The Mayo Clinic would be very happy to perform the snip snip, but not while one’s spouse is still pregnant. I suppose this makes sense, because what if there are problems with the baby? Would one change his mind? Also, since one has already knocked up one’s wife, one did not NEED birth control at that time, unless one was catting around, and would one like one’s spouse to know that??

This was very sensible, and I was *not* catting around, so I waited, and there was only one problem with that. When I do something like this I like to DO it and get it over with. Anticipation is a killer for me. In class, if we needed to give a speech, I always volunteered to go first, to get it over with. Unfortunately, there was no volunteering early for the snip snip, and I had to wait until my fourth child was delivered.

Finally, though, the day came. Our newborn was safely out into the world, and it was time to plug the dam.

I went into the office, the urology office, and they asked me if I had any preferences of Doctor? I did not. I knew none of them, and I figured they were all good, so I said “the first one that can do it would be fine.” I was scheduled to see Dr Gray at 1 PM.

I left, and when I returned at 1 PM I was sent to a room next to the, um, procedure room. I waited a few minutes, and in walked Dr. Gray. A female Dr Gray. It was flashback time, dear readers. I warn you that, while this is the first flashback, there will be more coming during the telling of this tale. If you are prone to motion sickness I suggest you put on your Dramamine patch now, so it will be in effect later, when you need it.

The flashback was to my college days. Specifically, to a February 14th, Valentine’s day, when I had friends visiting, and when none of us had dates. The bars were full of couples, moony-eyed couples, and no self-respecting female would come into the bar on Valentine’s day without a date, so my pals and I were lonely. Very lonely. We yearned for the soothing touch of a young lass, or, at least, for the companionship of a girl.

Somehow our conversation turned to a local establishment called “The Velvet Touch Massage Parlor.” Oh, yeah, now you can see where this is going. Somehow, the deal was that my two pals would pay the bill and I would get the, ahem, service, and then I would report back to them everything that happened, complete with all the details. Even back then I was known as a pretty good story teller, and if the story wasn’t just right, I could always fake it to make it great.

I recall that, at the “Velvet Touch,” I was instructed to take a shower, in a very dark room, and “Monica” would be right in after I was done. I recall that the soap in the shower was Ivory soap, “99.44% pure.” I could smell the soap, and when I recalled the slogan I thought “99.44% pure? Not after tonight.”

So when I met Dr. Gray, the female urologist at the Mayo Clinic, (did you see how quickly I zoomed back to the present time, from the flashback? I warn you, fasten your seat belts, and keep your head pressed firmly back into the headrest, because the way I am whipping around my timeline you might get whiplash!) I flashed back to the moment, at the “Velvet Touch massage Parlor,” when I was showered and soaped and 99.44% pure, and when I waited to meet “Monica,” the first woman who would ever intimately examine my, um, wedding tackle. All the insecurities that I felt back then, at the “Velvet Touch,” came tumbling back to me at the Mayo Clinic. “What if I get hard? What if I don’t? What if I like it? What if I don’t? What if the Vikings *never* win the Superbowl?”

I listened to Dr. Gray cautioning me that a vasectomy is NOT reversible, but if I did want it reversed, they could do it. She mentioned it was just a minor procedure, and it almost NEVER failed, but it might. I listened and I became a little more at ease. I was older than I had been at the "Velvet Touch." I had experience. I was practically a man of the world. Given a choice, let’s face it, I would much rather have a woman messing with my, um, tackle than have a man messing with it. This was going to be all right. Yeah. I was cool. I was ready. I was, like, "Let’s do this puppy!"

This post is plenty long, so I will post it now, and continue the story later.

Coming up next – Into the “Procedure room.”