Tough Love for My Testicles

It was an event that has to happen every so often. Considering it's been eight years since the last time, it was overdue.

I had a physical.

Now, I have a queue of excellent excuses for why it's taken so long to get back to a doctor's office.

There was how my previous doctor canceled an appointment, leading to me procrastinating before making a new one. After all, I thought we had a special connection, and he went and just canceled. Was I supposed to go running back to his arms without letting him feel a slight chill from my cold shoulder?

Of course, he decided to join Doctors Without Borders (or something similar, hell if I can remember) before I could go crawling back, so that ended that relationship.

A replacement doctor took his place, so I was all set. Almost. Turns out, Dr. I-Can't-Remember-Her-Name-Because-She-Never-Saw-Me wasn't setup with my insurance yet, so I'd have to wait until her paperwork went through for another physical.

Then she left the hospital, and I was a man without a doctor.

Most people would rectify the situation, especially after the nagging letters started coming from the insurance company about needing a new PCP. But I had been burned twice, and my heart was still tender. I was in no rush to race back to a medical relationship that would leave me feeling so ignored and, yes, unloved.

Add on to this the fact that the worst news of my life is most likely to come in a doctor's office, and my subconscious mind had no problem whispering thoughts of procrastination into my hospital-phobic head.

So eight years passed.

Now, when it comes to medical mentality, my wife and I are polar opposites. When she gets a splinter, she wants to run to the hospital to make sure it won't make its way to her heart and kill her in her sleep. And if I were to cut off a hand, I would most likely explain to her, "If I just rinse it with water, it should be fine."

(This showed itself in one of the more horrific events of my college years. I managed to put a gash in head by being a total jackass. It involved a high jump down a flight of stairs with a low overhang. As I sat with blood literally gushing down my face, the EMT tried to take me to the hospital. When I attempted to talk my way out of going, he simply stated, "Do what you want, but you'll have to sign a waiver." Only the threat of Northeastern being free and clear of the lawsuit I had in the back of my mind made me agree to going to the Emergency Room. That low overhang was their fault, damn it, not my idiocy and deciding to jump down flights of stairs.)

My wife goes to a women's clinic, and is quite fond of her doctor. She's also sick of me blowing off routine medical checkups. This led to her making me an appointment.

So I went, and here's what happened.

I arrived at the clinic feeling a bit awkward. After all, it's a practice for women. Cathy had assured me that husbands are welcome, but when I arrived, the place was, as they say in French, sans sausage. I felt like the creepy guy in a movie that's trying to find his wife in a woman's shelter who had run away after years of abuse.

Pushing that feeling aside, the signing-in/waiting room process was quite nice, actually. Then a friendly medical assistant took me to the "pod" and did the whole height/weight measurement.

(I was pretty happy at this point, since Dr. "I'm going to go save the world" had basically called me a tubby son-of-a-bitch when we last met, and now I was 40 lbs lighter. This was also my first line of defense when this doctor made the old BMI reference and alluded to the fact I was still a tubby son-of-a-bitch. The "I just lost a lot of weight," angle was a sure-fire way out of the healthy living speech I'd heard way too many times already.)

So Dr. Y arrived after a long wait, and things went well. She did the usual interview. Family medical history, current medical issues, etc. We discussed my least favorite health topic, the numerous lipomas that dot my torso and arms, a chronic source of minor pain. She gave me the same advice I'd heard before: they were so small and numerous as to no merit removal unless they grew bigger or hurt more. No surprises there.

We moved on to the disrobing part of the festivities. There's a certain ritual to this process, one I almost disrupted by being ready to simply get naked as soon as she told me I'd need to put on a johnny. (When a woman tells me to get naked, I don't dilly-dally.) Then the voice of reason in my head reminded me that is was not appropriate to remove clothes yet, and waited for her to leave before I switched attire.

When she returned after what I have to assume to be another patient visit (it took a while), the typical poking and prodding ensued. Then she started talking about my testicles, and things went downhill fast.

My testicles are, by and large, my good buddies. Now Dr Y was telling me about all the horrible things that could happen to them, with cancer being at the top of the list. This kind of information makes me giggle nervously. (That's right, I literally start giggling. Sigh.)

She then informed me she was going to teach me how to give myself a testicle examination. I had heard tips in the past about this process, but this was going to be a show-and-tell.

It started innocuously enough, with her feeling the lymph nodes in the crooks between my legs and crotch, having me feel them as well. Then she proceeded to the Boys.

In my memory, I swear she said, "You really have to roll them around." She might have used a different wording than that, but she proceeded to treat them like a pair of marbles free to roll around in sack. My giggling really kicked in now, and I fought the urge to scream, "THEY'RE ATTACHED IN THERE!!!"

Now, one question I've been asked a couple times by women is, is there a risk of getting... "excited" by this attention? For me, the answer is no for two simple reasons:

1. There is nothing sexy about a doctor's office and a cancer exam. I don't care if a naked super model was giving the Boys a look-over, Mr. Happy is not going to salute.
2. While some guys may dig ball abuse (and some go as far as to pay for the service, I've heard), my little buddies do not like being worked over. It only makes me giggle nervously.

As a matter of fact, I have some free advice for the ladies: If your man is in the mood and you're not, ask him when was the last time he examined himself for cancer. He'll go from ripe banana to elephant trunk faster than you can say "flaccid."

(And also, I know every women reading my bitching is thinking, "At least you don't need an exam that involves a speculum!" I do not, and I'm very grateful about this. And I'm sorry you do.)

So anyway, back to my testicles getting worked over. The process was so uncomfortable for me that after she was finished, it took me a minute to realize that she had not proclaimed the Boys riddled with malignancy. Hurray, little buddies! You're not (currently) trying to kill me.

This brought us to the end of our little adventure. She told me to get dressed and head to the lab area to get blood drawn and a tetanus and pertussis shot. The lab tech proceeded to draw the blood and was ready to send me packing before I pointed out that the tetanus shot was checked off as well. (Gotta be on your toes at a hospital.)

Then I was off to the rest of my day, a bit sore, but otherwise in good health.

I may even do it again before eight years pass.

PS: That tetanus shot is hurting like a mother fucker right now...

Excuse Me, Sir, But Your Pants Are Falling Off

Riding home on the bus, and some kid is sitting there with his pants hanging down low enough that it looks like he's taking a dump. I watch him get off the bus, holding his pants up. (What else do they have keeping them up if they're under his ass?)

This is fashion? This is what someone considers to be a good idea?

This has me rethinking my staid opinions on clothing. Perhaps I need to take my look in an exciting new direction. Underwear over my pants, perhaps? Or I could try a shirt 3 sizes too big. (Or 3 sizes too small. Genius!) Maybe I'll wear my pants backward. (Oh right, that one's been done. Kriss Kross will make you jump jump.)

No need to stop with clothing. How about the one eyebrow look? Not just for the guy that passed out at the party first anymore! (Whoever just made the crack about my mono-brow: fuck you.) How about shaving all facial hair except what's on my neck? Gross, you say? Awesome, I say.

Now, I'm no fan of couture fashion, or being part of the hive mind. I don't buy clothes every year to keep up with trends, and I'm not too concerned about what people think of how I look. But wearing your pants so low you have to hold them up? That's neither stylish nor smart in any way. It really has no redeeming qualities at all.

Except to say, I'm a complete fucking moron, laugh at me!

Congratulations, sir, mission accomplished.

Marinade Master Meat Tumbler Machine

I stumbled upon an ad for the "Marinade Master Meat Tumbler Machine."

Where do I begin?

The first thing that pops into mind is those toy rock tumblers I always saw in the Sears catalog growing up. Throw some rocks in and hours later, they're worn smooth. Exciting!

Now I had to assume this invention wasn't to make meat smooth. Delving further, I discovered the tumbler both rotates the meat in a bath of marinade, but also sucks out the air in the container to marinade your meat in as little as twenty minutes!

This glorious, nay, indispensable item was a mere 54 dollars with free shipping.

Thank God someone has finally saved me from having to marinade my meats over night! The wait was unbearable. Sometimes you get home from work and need marinated meat, stat.

Now that I got the sarcasm out of my system, I want to know who would buy this item? (If you did please leave a comment, so I can mock you.) What people meet the following criteria?

• Enjoy marinading meats
• Think marinading takes too long
• Have 54 bucks to spend on useless junk
• Enjoy watching meat tumble
• Don't live with anyone that would mock them incessantly for buying a Marinade Master Meat Tumbler Machine

Since that narrows it down to, in my estimation, one person in America, I say enjoy your tumbler, my friend. Let the good times (and meat) roll!

It Sucks To Be Sick

There is a very fine suite of medication I employ to feel healthy when illness hits me (more on this later), but sometimes, the offending malady is too strong and downright evil to be stopped by any amount of drugs. In this case it's a nasty head cold.

I thought I was going to escape major damage this time around. The drugs were keeping the worst of the symptoms in check. But then, last night hanging out with Cathy celebrating her charity 5k fun run with her co-workers, the shit hit the fan. I felt like total crap.

This sucked on many levels. For one, I was suddenly doing my best zombie impersonation. Secondly, what was a celebration time for Cathy now had one less than festive participant. Lastly, Cathy works with a really good group of people that I rarely see, so not being all there for the get-together was a bummer. Sorry guys.

Fast forward to last night as I was trying to sleep and coughing incessantly. I kept waiting for the pillow to cover my head so Cathy could put me out of my misery and get some sleep. At one point she asked in a groggy half-awake state, "Why are you so mad at me!" as if my coughing was an act of antagonism. When I did get to sleep, I started to dream about being sick. Also, probably because of how deeply I've been thinking through a coding project at work, I will admit with embarrassment that I dreamed that there was a bug in my breathing code, and until I fixed it I would continue to cough. I guess androids do dream of electric sheep.

Fast forward further to this morning and one of my least favorite things: waking up after a long night of cold mucous plugging up my head and lungs. The ritual is then a fresh does of drugs and the waiting game. Am I feeling well enough to go to work?

A few words about sick days. I never took a sick day until my mid-twenties. This had a lot to do with my mother, who is tough as nails and has the New England work ethic. She never took a sick day (as opposed to my dad, who didn't mind taking the odd year off of work). Part of the reason for this is simple: when you're making hourly wages (minimum wage, I might add), you don't get paid if you don't show up. There's no allotment of sick days like us salary boys get. Beyond that though, my mom just didn't need sick days. This is, after all, the woman who has been known to pull her own teeth to save dentist fees.

Because of this, I feel like a big wimp when I take a sick day. But what I've learned over the years is that I can't code when I'm sick. There's just too much mental processing, too many balls in the air at once, and all it takes is one cough or sneeze and you've lost it. Then you're spending several minutes picking them up and getting going again.

Also, when you cough all day, your co-workers want to lynch you. And if they get sick from you, they really want lynch you.

So when I decide to pull the plug on going to work and admit defeat to my head cold, I'm left with deciding how to best get through the day. Sleep would be good, but I just can stand the feeling of filling up with mucous. I also can't really focus long enough to do anything fun like read a book or watch a movie.

So I'm writing a blog entry. I think this must say a lot about how I write. That it's really mostly a stream of consciousness that requires very little active thinking. (This is kind of true, I just sit down and write in order, then read back once for typos.) And that I can lose focus repeatedly (like the 2 minutes I just spent feeling sorry for myself for being sick) and just jump back in where I left off . That's the beauty of writing: your words don't have to compile.

So I'm either going to resign myself to trying to sleep and all the grossness that will entail, or I may just wing out a couple more of these babies.

As promised, a word on drugs. When I have a cold, I use two things: an antihistamine called loratadine (aka Claritin) and the world's greatest decongestant, pseudoephedrine (the main ingredient in some, and formerly all, versions of Sudafed). For brevity's sake, I'll refer to pseudoephedrine as PE going forward. (As pointed out by my blogger buddy MommyDoc, Sudafed now has a non PE version that they've dubbed Sudafed PE, so just be aware that my use of the term PE is different than that of Sudafed's.)

PE is amazing, but it's now hard to get and many drug companies have stopped using it in their medication, replacing it with another drug that doesn't work as well (for me at least) and makes me drowsy (PE is actually an upper). The reason for this? PE is now strongly controlled because it is one of the ingredients needed to make meth. This means you can only buy one box at a time, and only at a prescription counter where you have to show id. My hunch is this will lead to the end of PE being used by drug companies eventually.

Now, I'm all for not allowing people to buy a dozen boxes of the stuff, but can't I at least buy one or two without going through a long process? If some drug dealer wants to run in and out of CVS stores buying two boxes at a time, I just don't care. I'm for educating people on the dangers of drugs, but you can't legislate common sense (or morality). And nothing is as sweet as forbidden fruit.

Oh God, that must be the cold medicine talking, since I hate political rants. Oh well, now you know how I feel about the "war on drugs." And that I hate being made to feel like a criminal because I want to buy medication that improves my quality of life and that I have no intention of abusing. And that I'm pissed that the difficulty of acquiring PE will most likely mean that it will eventually not even be available as a cold medicine.

Blame the pseudoephedrine. Perhaps we need to ban this dangerous drug all together. (Please don't, I'm only kidding. I need my PE!)

The Tale of Spanky McHanderson

Here's a story I tell with childish glee over and over, so might as well get it out there for everyone in one fell swoop.

This happened a few years ago.

I shared a long room with several developers at my job. We were coupled on long desks such that glancing to the side would allow you to see the other guy at the desk, and glancing the other way would look out the window. The angle my deskmate "J" sat made it easy for him to see a nearby hotel.

As you can imagine (and I bet your already did, you dirty bird), lots of shenanigans occurred at that hotel, and the occupants were often kind enough to leave the blinds open for us to enjoy the show. One fateful day, we got a show we didn't want to see.

J was typing away at his computer when he decided to take a quick window break and just look outside for a few seconds. I was typing away myself when I heard him bellow, "OH MY GOD!" before slapping his hands over his eyes. He turned his chair around and jumped up, walking away from his desk.

The immediate reaction to the several people in the room was, of course, morbid curiosity. We scampered around like animals at feeding time at the zoo, hustling to the window. Since I sat next to J I reacted quickest, looking over at the hotel, and witnessing a man I have since dubbed "Spanky McHanderson" in my mind.

First off, the windows at this hotel were floor to ceiling, so when the curtains were open, you had a full view of the goings on. Especially when the occupant was in the corner room, as was Spanky.

Mr. McHanderson was standing in the window, buck-naked. He looked to be middle-aged and slightly paunchy. He was also flogging the dolphin. Terms that come to mind are "going to town" and "with reckless abandon." This was not a sweet romance Spanky was having with his little fellow, this was a passionate tryst.

In short, McHanderson was really enjoying the view of Boston.

Exclamations of disgust erupted through the room in a shockwave, bringing more rubberneckers from beyond our room.

One person who came in had the immediate reaction to laugh at the sight, and then to reach for his cellphone to take a picture.

Quicker than you can say, "Dude, wtf are you doing?" (which we did in chorus), Spanky seemingly sensed his potential capture on film and disappeared, leaving us all both amused and traumatized.

Ever since that fateful day, I've pondered whether Mr. McHanderson hadn't realized people could see him, but that seems unlikely. It seems to me (in a horror story twist) that he wanted to be seen, and he was excited about it. The kind of excited you can go to town on. Shudder.

I feel so dirty. Spanky, wherever you are, you and your spanky ways have molested my eyes and scarred me for life. I hope you're happy.

Scary Things Pointed at My Head

Went to my bi-annual dentist appointment today. I had a sinking feeling throughout the day before my visit that this would be the time that all the warnings of, "We'll have to keep on an eye out on that next time," would finally catch up with me. I feared horrendous issues. Dates with drills and other sharp, scary things.

Turns out that my teeth were just fine, thank you. Things seemed to be so good, as a matter of fact, that I didn't get the usual warnings about my bad oral habits. I was shocked, to be honest.

But, there was one bump in the road. My hygenist informed me that it had been five years since my last set of full oral x-rays. She also explained that they had moved to a new computer based x-ray system. "It's easier because I don't have to develop x-rays anymore," she said happily, before noting, "But taking the x-rays is a bit harder."

This caught my attention, since the travails of x-ray development had been hidden from me, but, by golly, the actual taking part involved me and my poor little mouth.

She brought out what looked a bit like the usual apparatus: a metal bar with a large plastic loop on the not me end that was used for aiming the x-ray cannon. (I call it x-ray cannon because that's what it looks like when it's pointed at my head.) On the business end, where once had been a simple little piece of x-ray film, was a hunk of plastic with a rather intimidating cable protruding and running to a computer. It was about to be my joy to bite down on this sucker eighteen times.

First was the lead flak jacket for my chest (and more importantly, my genitals). After that was thudded into place, my first command to bite down was given, and with that uncomfortable hunk of plastic in my mouth and the x-ray cannon pointed at my head (my chest is protected, but what about my brain?), she ran from the room to pull the trigger.

I have a pretty strong gag reflex, so this exercise in painful repetition required a force of will on my part. Beyond that, for a couple of the x-rays, it hurt pretty ******* bad.

In case you're wondering, the word replaced by ******* is "fucking."

Now, this would all have been perfectly awful enough, except for one exciting twist. When I'm in a painful, awkward situation, I tend to giggle. Giggling is not the best way to go about having oral x-rays taken. It potentially messes up the x-rays, which can lead to more cannon fire, and more melted brain cells. I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere. Or my good friend and fellow blogger MommyDoc may have told me that.

Anyhoo, another symptom of giggling in the dentists office is you look pretty silly (or sexy and macho, at least that's what I tell myself). Based on the exasperation of my hygenist/sadist, I'll have to bet on silly. Perhaps it was the simple fact that she had been looking forward to torturing the poor sap that need the full x-rays to end her day, and here he was, laughing. I guess that's like hours of foreplay not only not leading to an orgasm, but resulting in an anti-orgasm where your genitals explode. Needless to say, she was not pleased with my inability to suffer properly.

After the last x-ray, I had the urge to proclaim, "That was the oral equivalent of a prostate exam!" In a rare moment of self censorhip, I did not.

The rest of the exam was unremarkable. Just the usual insufferable pain caused by sharp, pointy things digging into my gums under some pretense of dental health. Then the cameo by the actual dentist to pull at my lips as if I was Mr. Ed before patting me on the head and assuring that everything was just fine, scooter! (Okay, there was no patting of the head and the word scooter was not used, but it sure felt that way.)

So with the good news of no impending oral doom and a throbbing mouth, I made my escape, never to have to go back. Until January 5th. Fuck.

Greetings from the Gas Station

A quick walk to the corner gas station always lowers my faith in humanity.

First off, about the only reason I go there is to get soda and/or junk food, so I'm already in a self-loathing mode. This self loathing is further helped by one cashier that likes to remark on my purchases. "What, no Slim Jim today, buddy?" he'll ask with what appears to be a sincere, non-sarcastic smile. This throws me off. I'm always prepared to be mocked, and I'm ready to fire back. But he genuinely seems curious why I just don't want a Slim Jim today.

Which leads me to realize with a twist in my stomach that I buy so many Slim Jims at this place that not doing so is a remarkable event. Now my self-loathing gets a topping of shame, and I'm in the perfect mood to witness humanity.

There is always (and I really mean always) someone in front of me, often of advanced years, picking out scratch tickets with the intense scrutiny of a teenage boy that just found his dad's stash of Playboys. The sucker in question is staring those little pieces of cardboard down like there's a sure big winner in view and all it takes is a good look-see to find out which it is. Our gambler is basically undressing those poor, helpless scratch tickets with his/her eyes.

I'm standing there, jonesing for a sugar fix, staring at the back of the sucker's head as if my intense frustration just might make it explode. (If this ever works, I'll let you know.) Every time I fight the urge to explain the economics of scratch tickets. It's pretty simple: If you buy every scratch ticket on Earth, you will lose money. Therefore, if you buy a fraction of all the scratch tickets on Earth, you will most likely lose money. The only hope for profit is buying a few, hitting a winner, and quitting on the spot.

This doesn't happen. How do I know this? Because all those suckers buying tickets scratch them off mere seconds after purchasing them, and turn in any winners for more tickets. This leads me to wonder if someone hits a ten thousand dollar winner, will I see them everyday feverishly blowing through the winnings in hopes of more winnings? I think I know the answer to that.

I know I should feel bad for these people, since they are most likely addicts. I should also feel bad for smokers who come in and drop eight bucks for a pack of smokes that might last a day. Often, it's the same sad-sack getting both cigarettes and scratch tickets. And to be honest, I do kind of feel bad for them.

But you know what, I'm a lard-ass because I'm in a gas station, buying soda. If I keel over in ten years, it's my own damn fault. We reap what we sow, simple as that.

Speaking of weight problems, one more life-affirming anecdote. Yesterday, I was getting a soda, and I hear a young girl behind me ask her mother, "Can I buy this gum?" The mother's response: "No, because it's full of sugar and it will make you fat."

Beyond the debate of how fattening gum that you spit out actually is (and the cold, delicious soda in my paw has it beat for sure), telling a young girl something will make her fat is not what I'd call a recipe for a healthy self image. I'm sure the girl is glancing over at me and thinking that if she's not careful, she too will end up as tubby as the creepy guy lustfully gripping sugar water. I'm also sure this is not the first time her mother has warned her about becoming fat. The same impulse that made me want to lecture the gambler makes me want to really go off on this woman for destroying her daughter's fragile ego.

Then a voice in my head says, You know, drinking soda is really bad for you, so I pay for my poison and go my not-so-merry way.