For me, the idleness is worse than the postsurgical pain
I’m writing from my office with an ice pack on my lap.
The “ice” is actually some sort of freezable packet that slips down into a pouch on a specially designed jockstrap. A strange, somewhat vulgar word is printed across the blue gel pack in loud white letters.
The ice is, of course, cold; the jockstrap constricting like the ones I wore when I played football for the Tornadoes and then the Winds, the two rival peewee teams in Russellville back in 1998.
By middle school, I was a Gale, then a Whirlwind, then a Cyclone after that — and jockstraps were a thing of the past, replaced by padded girdles.
One time, while riding my bike at the Bona Dea Trail, I racked myself on my Huffy’s handlebars. The medical procedure I’d endured on a recent Thursday was reminiscent of that unfortunate fall. It made my stomach hurt.
The Valium helped a little. I was doped up during the procedure, drooling out dumb locker-room jokes, one after another. And something about Mark Barr’s novel, “Watershed.” Or maybe it was a Kevin Brockmeier story.
Only the Shadow knows.
And the urologist, his nurse, my wife — they were all there, too. The nurse had a shirt on that read: “TODAY IS A GOOD DAY FOR A VASECTOMY.”
Listen, guys. It wasn’t that bad.
When it was over, my wife took me to Tacos 4 Life. I was starving and surprised by the price — $20 for a two-taco combo? — until I remembered a portion of my order went to help fight world hunger.
The Valium was wearing off, the soreness settling in. I spilled queso on my pants, but we made it home.
The days between then and now have been black and mostly blue. I’ve passed the time reading Charles Portis novels on the banks of Lake Dardanelle.
At some point, the wind blew “The Dog of the South” into the water. The notes I’d left in the margins (written with my trusty blue Pilot V7) faded and blurred. I sent a picture of the pruney pages to Jay Jennings, and he replied with a line about John Selmer Dix.
I spent the next eight hours trying to catch a catfish. I didn’t get a bite.
The idleness has been worse than the pain. I’m a hamster at heart, in need of a wheel. Six more days and I’ll be up and running. Swimming, maybe, too. I don’t mind the cold, but I’m sure sick of this jockstrap.
A small price to pay for permanent sterilization.