Slice of Life (part one)

Hey readers!!! Reports of my e-death are mostly exaggerated. Truth is, I've been spending just about every waking (and sleeping!) moment working on a collaborative effort to solve the Collatz Conjecture with a team of Turkish mathematicians. Our parity sequence approach line is looking bleaker and bleaker, and Aztük-Bey (our team leader) is about to throw in the proverbial towel. I haven't slept in fucking months.

I emerged from my math-cave Thursday morning, and saw the letters "VSC" on the wall calendar for Friday the 29th. First thing came to mind was another reunion bash for the old college intramural soccer squad, but then it hit me: THE VASECTOMY!!! I set this thing up over the summer... I guess time flies when you're mapping residue classes with a bunch of crazy Turks.

I dropped Jr. off at pre-school this morning and more or less dicked around on the Upper West for a few hours (Verizon store, Modell's, Rite-Aid, etc.) until it was time to head East. I figured I'd look over my literature on vasectomies while the M72 seeped crosstown, but it was tough to keep a low profile when every page of the info-packets I had featured giant diagrams of penises.

At least I knew I was going to see the right guy. Dr. Shel Silverstone is a world-renowned walnut whipper with an office right here in Manhattan, and a helluva good guy too. During our initial consultation, he told me I had a "perfect scrotum" and called the surgery-to-be a piece of cake. And when I found out my insurance wasn't gonna cover a red cent of the procedure, Dr. Silverstone sent me this email-- "I'll cut it in half..." Funny guy.

Before I knew it I was donning a hospital gown and wondering what the hell I was doing. The decision to sterilize wasn't a difficult one, considering the hundreds of sexual partners immense challenges we're facing raising just two kids; it's hard to imagine doing any more than we already are. As I've said many times, two's my limit on schnitzengruben.

I was led into the operating room by Dr. S's assistant, who was a dead ringer for Esai Morales. As Esai shaved my balls, he asked if the music piped into the room was OK. Something from the closing credits of a Shirley MacLaine romantic comedy wasn't really doing it for me, so I asked him what else they had. He said, "Classical and Sinatra," which sounded even worse, so I settled for Tesh-Grusinesque garbage. I was about 30 minutes into a Valium, and actually considered digging out my iPod and hitching up E'G's Angels in the Architecture for all to enjoy, but had a horrifying vision of Moraz/Bruford's "Split Seconds" startling Silverstone into lopping off my jimbo.

Esai prepared the first injection, and...

TO BE CONTINUED