It was a slow night at my usual watering hole when a sharp-eyed bartender noticed a new scar on a patron’s arm. This begat a fearsome tale of its acquisition and that begat a fearsome game of how-I-got-my-scar. Whiskey Neat pulled up his shirt to reveal a doozy across his stomach. House Red hiked up a leg to show a burn on her calf (motorcycle muffler). As the various stories of pain and valor began to run out, the group looked to Draft Beer, a guy not known for keeping his mouth shut.

I had to think fast because wrinkles and stretch marks don’t count in this game. Removing a fleck of foam from my lips, I set my pint glass gently on the bar and said, “I have a scar from my vasectomy if anybody wants to look at that.” After the smirks and giggles petered out I continued, “Laugh all you want, but you can’t imagine what I went through to get these.”

It started when I was a lad being a right and proper brat. I was banished to my room to ponder what I had done. What I came to realize was that I would probably grow up and that meant I might have a child and that meant it would surely be as bratty as me. No way was I going to endure what I was putting my parents through.

So it was at a tender age that I started asking mom for a vasectomy. It amazed me how stubborn she was about granting my wish, not even as a Christmas/ birthday combo-deal.

I was a sophomore in college when I turned eighteen, the age of reason or so they say, and marched into the student health office. I pecked on the little window in the waiting room, and a nurse born in the waning days of the Civil War looked up, “How may I help you?”

“I would like a vasectomy please.”

She peered over her half-glasses and said, “Excuse me?”

“A vasectomy, and if I could get it done before Spring Break that would be great, if you know what I mean.” I made a snickity noise with my mouth for emphasis.

She raised an eyebrow, “We are here to treat coughs, colds, chlamydia, that sort of thing. We are not in the business of neutering students.”

Clearly Mom had gotten to her. It would be another six years of school and post-coital anxiety before I graduated and entered the military with its attendant healthcare.

Soon I found myself in a drab room with a lieutenant looking over my paperwork. He closed the chart and said, “OK, vasectomy, not a problem. All we need from you is a stable marriage of at least ten years with two or more kids.”

I looked at him expecting a smile, but he just stood there stoic, exuding military bearing. “Two or more kids,” I yelped, “do you know what a vasectomy is for!” He yammered on about future regrets, blah, blah blah… “How did she get to you!” He raised an eyebrow and scribbled copious notes.

Fast forward and I am newly married with a wife more scared of brats than I. When the big day arrived, I imagined myself on a gurney being rushed to the OR with the doctor barking orders as I watched the florescent ceiling lights zip by.

Instead, I laid on a hard examination table with the paper sticking to the backs of my sweaty legs. Finally, the door thumped open and my urologist sauntered in still wearing his golf glove. He was talking to his resident about the pitching lineup for the LA Dodgers.

They began and would futz around then stop to say so-and-so was a joke of a relief-pitcher and what’s-his-name really needs to go back to the minors. They acted like two mechanics doing routine maintenance. I wanted to scream, “Hey! Maybe it’s not a fancy car, but it’s my car!”

But before I knew it I had a bag of ice on my crotch and a pamphlet on post-op instructions. The doctor said his goodbyes, and as he sling-shot his latex gloves into the trash can, he informed me: “There’s a one in 400 chance your vasectomy will grow back and you’ll be fertile again. I won’t raise your kid but I’ll do it again for free.”

I said not to worry as I didn’t think I would have sex 400 times.

— This column is used with

permission from Chris Austin, an award-winning humor columnist and The Beachcomber’s circulation manager.