About six months ago, I was dating a girl who absolutely loved sex. I sure as hell wasn’t complaining, but her enthusiasm for sin meant that I was going through a lot of condoms. One night, she called me up to ask me over, so I jumped in the car and began driving over to see her. About halfway there, I realized that I was totally out of condoms. So pulled over at a gas-station and went inside.
There’s a weird ritual about buying condoms. No one likes to buy only condoms. Invariably, men will buy a box of condoms and some other stupid trinket or candy that’s lying around. It’s like we want the clerk to think that we came in expressly to buy a 4 dollar pen but suddenly remembered that we needed birth-control.
So I grabbed the first box I found, along with a pack of gum and went to the counter. “Have a good night.” The clerk told me.
“That” I replied, “is the plan.”
When I got to the girl’s house things went as planned. Three condoms later, I staggered up to go to the bathroom. I was thinking about what a perfect height her bed was positioned at when suddenly I felt shooting pain.
“Oh God! My tract!”
20 minutes later, I had squoze not a drop and the pain was worse than ever. I also noticed that my most prized male possession was noticeably swollen.
“Fuck it. I’m driving to the emergency room.”
There are really few things in life that can prepare you for driving yourself to the emergency room at 3:30 in the morning because of an unidentified problem with your cock.
I strolled into the E.R. where an old, weary looking nurse gave me a skeptical once over.
“Can I help you?”
“Yes. I need to check myself in.”
“Because?”
“I think I have a kidney stone.”
Look, I was freaked out. We men scare easily when we think anything’s wrong with our block and tackle. It was 4 AM, I hadn’t slept and I had had a twenty minute car-ride alone in which to dream up the most agonizing of ailments that had afflicted me.
They put me in one of those horrible robes and sat me in a little curtained area. Then they proceeded to treat me like a sideshow freak. I’ve had my fair share of women over the years, but I must have shown, by request, my gear to about 16 people that night. That was a personal best for me.
Among the low-lights of the night was when a young doctor came in and said, “We’re going to have to do the syphilis and Chlamydia test.”
For you ladies, or scummy, untested men, said test involves a soft swab on a stick, violating your most tender of openings. Nope, not your ass. Your OTHER most tender of openings. Basically, they rape you with a Q-Tip.
I’d had the procedure done before, and it’s never fun. However, when you’re already swollen and miserable, the test is just about unbearable.
Not 20 seconds after the doctor had ceased violating me like the drunk girl at a frat-party, a second doctor came in with a far more rational explanation of what had afflicted my crotch.
“Were you sexually active tonight, son?”
“Uh…yeah.”
“Did you try a new brand of condoms, by any chance?”
“…I guess.”
“You’re allergic to spermicidal lubricants. I see it all the time. You’re having trouble urinating because you’re swollen up so far that you’re cutting off your own pipes.”
Oh, how I wish that the trauma had ended there. I was reading a book, waiting for the pills they had given me to take effect when a nurse entered and started busying herself about the room. I was only half paying attention, when she asked me to move up on the bed.
“Sure” I said. “What are we doing?”
From personal experience, there is nothing, NOTHING that gets a man’s attention faster than the next six words that were uttered.
“I’m just putting the catheter in.”
All in all, I’ve had better nights. In fact, I’m hard pressed to think up with a worse evening. The whole experience led to a few revelations on my part:
- A man would rather sustain an injury to almost any other part of his body. Give a choice between permanent crotch or permanent brain damage, most men would opt for the cinderblock upside the head.
- I never, ever want to get a kidney stone.
- I don’t pay nearly as much attention to the brand or model of condoms as I should.
- While I may have secretly have imagined scenarios where I remove my pants at the request of a room-full of nurses, the real thing is significantly less appealing than I thought.
- A set of circumstances actually exsist where I don’t want to hear the phrase, “Wow, your dick is HUGE.”