Dan says…

What are you doing?

I’m trying to see if there’s some way we can get on Badger Care.

Why? We already have insurance.

Because remember how we opted out of maternity coverage after we had our son?

Ye-

Because when did I start my last period?

I thin-

Because remember the crazy stuff you’ve been pulling the last few weeks?

Oh……..Shit. Really?

Yes, really.

Wait a minute……………… Really?

(high-intensity, blue laser cannons turning toward me) Really.

Oh. Shit.

Annnnnd scene.

__________________________________________________________

I’m 41. Too old to be making another run at father of a newborn. Hello? Have you seen the grey hair?

Sure, Brad Pitt’s 46 and regularly soaking Angelina Jolie’s eggs in baby batter, but Brad’s financially liquid. Comparatively, I’m a financial dribbler. And, hello again? Have you seen Brad’s abs? The man’s a physical specimen. I just watched Fight Club yesterday, for the 32nd time. Even I wanna lick his abs.

Me? I’m more of a laboratory specimen. And my abs would be better served as chops with a side of applesauce. Brad’s gonna live to 100. I can count to 100.

And apparently in my old age and state of medicinal use, I can’t be trusted to make that all-important time out to gear up, to ensure I’m not spending the next two years changing diapers. Or that same amount of time paying for medical bills.

So we’re thinking about taking that decision out of my hands forever, and putting it into the skilled and hopefully warm and delicate hands of one Dr. Moard.

When I called to make the consultation appointment (where I hear they make you watch a video, presumably of post-coital men giving a great big thumbs-up to having had their nads sliced open), I was all bravado. But as the conversation wore on, I found myself shriveling into my chair and instinctively putting a hand over my crotch. Y’know, just in case the nurse accidentally tries to give me a vasectomy right there, over the phone.

Am I going to be less of a man if I know I’m shooting blanks?

What about all the stories I found on the web of botched snip jobs where the guy ended up having to have his balls cut clean off? Speaking of Fight Club, hello, Robert Paulson!

Can I REALLY get to a point where I volunteer to let a strange man carve his initials on my genitals? And then have my junk look like this image I found on Wikipedia?

My magic 8-ball says “Ask Again Later.”

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…but Jane thinks…

Doctor I’d like a vasectomy
First you should talk to your family
I did just today
What did they say
They are in favor fifteen to three

My eggs are 42 years old. Older, actually, because I’m pretty sure those little babypods start to grow in utero. Not my utero. Well, IN my utero while I was in utero.

I’m confused now.

Let’s start again.

I’m too old to have any more babies. That, and I can barely handle the ones I have and they’re not even babies anymore. Excuse me while I lock myself in the bathroom and sob for an hour. I get emotional about the no baby thing sometimes. Even though, truth be told, I wasn’t that great with babies. Not that I endangered them or hated them or dressed them up in weird clothes and took pictures of them for my own amusement or shoved beans up their noses, I just wasn’t a very calm and together mother of babies. She says. In the understatement of the decade.

My youngest baby child is six. After she was born, we (husband and me, that is) decided that we were done. Boy. Girl. Done. Two kids. Done. I should probably mention at this point that our discussion of the subject occurred shortly after the one in which my obstetrician told me that with my history of high risk pregnancies that I’d probably just explode upon conception rather than have to suffer through the trials and tribulations of pre-eclampsia and gestational diabetes if I were ever to get knocked up again. Which, actually, might be preferable to both, but never mind. Exploding Mommy = Bad Plan.

The thing is, I tried to get pregnant twice. And I got pregnant twice. In fact, the second time, we’d just begun talking about trying to get pregnant again. I think my husband sneezed near me when I was in the shower because I’m sure there was no scheduled or conscientious effort on either of our parts and then I remember that we both got the flu – the stomach flu – so there was no, er, effort made shortly after this initial “Should we? Shouldn’t we?” conversation. In other words, in the past, it’s not been hard for us to conceive.

I’ve also never been pregnant other than those two, intentional (mostly) pregnancies. This makes me very lucky, I think. Not that I’m a huge tramp and spent most of the 80’s and 90’s whoring it up all over town or anything, but, you know, statistically, shit happens. But not to me. And for this I am grateful. But getting NOT pregnant took some effort on my part (again, I feel I should reiterate that I am not a tramp. I didn’t get married until I was 32, OK? What did you expect? Mom, Dad. Don’t read this anymore. I probably should have mentioned that earlier.). Birth control pills are awful. Side effects, both long term and short are only the tip of the iceberg. The patch? Still birth control pills, just not in pill form, and in my house the patch was called “The Bitch Patch” because within 20 minutes of sticking that little square of hormone-infused plastic to my ass I was transformed into Hormona, The Evil Queen of the Planet Dysmennhorrea. Diaphragm. Gross. Bladder infections. Also. Gross. On and on. I’m not telling anybody anything they don’t already know.

About a month and a half ago, I thought I was pregnant. It was a very tense two weeks at my house while I mentally checked and rechecked symptoms and then peed on many a stick. Ultimately, not pregnant.* Did I mention that it was a very tense two weeks at my house? I miss being pregnant, I miss breastfeeding, I miss having tiny, sweet smelling cuddly warm babies. What I don’t miss is daycare bills, bottles, formula, baby food, diapers, crying, teething, weird rashes, that thing you have to use to suck out snot when the kid has a cold, weekly (it seems) trips to the pediatrician, not sleeping, getting fat(ter), not spending time with the other people in my house. Also, I don’t miss diabetes and 20 pounds of water weight and the risk of stroke caused by high blood pressure. What I would miss? My car – because I’d need a minivan and then I’d have to kill myself. Also, my house. Because there ain’t no room at that inn for another person.

When men are through breeding, they should all get vasectomies. It’s a simple, out-patient procedure that results in minor discomfort – and they send you home with pills, so hello? Win, win as far as I’m concerned. The only preparation or “inconveniences” after the surgery is a little swelling – great opportunity for humor here, and the need to collect sperm samples before and after. That’s right. You, the magazines, a sterilized cup. My heart breaks for you.

The arguments for why men should get vasectomies instead of women getting tubal ligation or continuing to be responsible for birth control are so frequently trotted out in this debate that they are clichéd at this point. I don’t care.

I had two c-sections. Isn’t that enough mucking about with my innards? You think a little snip snip of the vas deferens makes your knees tremble, boys? My UTERUS WAS PLACED ON MY STOMACH WHILE THEY STITCHED IT BACK UP. At the end of my second c-section, I asked the doctor why it smelled like someone was smoking in the OR. He said, “It’s you. I’m cauterizing your insides.”

It’s cool. I’ll wait. Get a drink of water and put your head between your knees. The feeling will pass.

The arguments against vasectomies are that it hurts, it’s gross, and men are afraid. Ever seen one of these?

That’s an amnihook. Used to break a woman’s (mine) water during induced or slow labor.

And this?

That’s my obstetrician’s actual hand. Used to do a lovely procedure called “stripping the membrane” to speed labor along.

The vasectomy procedure, called, unbelievably, Riddle’s Fiddle, consists of two tiny incisions into numbed skin (topical anesthesia before the injection, you big wimps), two snips, and a few stiches. Which dissolve. Then you’re home, on Percodan, with a bag of frozen peas between your legs while you lie on the couch and demand beverages and sympathy. Other than a little private Dad time in the bathroom with the periodical of your choice and some hospital-approved Tupperware, you’re done.

The only real, scientifically proven, negative consequence or side effect of a vasectomy is that it is permanent. Reversing a vasectomy is often costly, challenging, and ineffective. Although I don’t see why this is a negative. That’s the whole damn point, isn’t it? No more babies? And not just no more babies with me, no more babies with anybody. The hell if I’m going to pick up your socks and raise two of your hellion offspring just so you can turn around and decide that you’ve had enough of my bitchy screeds and irrational behavior (till death do you part, buddy) and trade me in for a new model. A new model who wants babies. Babies who will make my own babies crazy because that’s what daddy’s new babies do. And I don’t have the time or energy for some other chick’s babies making my babies crazy. So no. No more babies. **

Get ‘er done. Anymore babies come in this house, mama’s out.

* If we had been pregnant, I’d totally have named that kid Daisy, as in “Oopsy Daisy.”

**Not that he’d ever leave me. Of course. I’m a catch. A bitchy, irrational catch. Who isn’t having any more babies.

Not to be outdone by Jane’s funbags I wanted to discuss something that’s important to men out there: man bags.

Welcome to Dan’s exercise room. (Don’t mind the lack of trim where the walls meet the floor. This is a room for man bags. We don’t need no stinkin’ trim.) The ad hoc mural on the back wall is designed to make the room not look like the darkest room in the dungeon basement. It’s also to give me motivation, to remind me of why I’m down there, sweating my ass off in the first place: being healthy so I can be around when my kids graduate/marry/have babies.

Or punching rainbows.

My heavy bag is one of my favorite exercise possessions. Mad at your boss? Lost a big client contract? Frustrated with Barney Frank? Pissed off at Jane? Don’t slap her around! Go over to the bag and swing away! You can get ‘em relatively cheaply at Amazon.

There’s nothing quite like the feeling of hearing the chains atop the bag rattle when you deliver a bone-crushing blow, and after 2-3 minutes of rib punches, uppercuts and hay makers, you’ll be breathing like a bull in Pamplona and not have any idea why you were so pissed off in the first place.

One mounting tip: it’s a lot easier to mount the bag to a 2×4 attached to two floor joists, but the noise it generates upstairs and downstairs is awful. I learned my lesson the hard way, in this house mounting the bag to a brace that’s attached to the foundation with angle iron. The result? A much quieter beat-down.

But that’s not the only bag in my basement.

My other man bag is an adjustable speed bag from Century. The speed bag isn’t one to use pissed off, because odds are pretty damn good you’ll walk away even more pissed off than when you started.

Speed bag is HARD. Getting the whole boppita-boppita-boppita timing down is WAY tougher to do and not end up looking like Lou Costello while doing it. But it’s a great cardio exercise and gives the arms a nice burn.

I have too much stuff. WAY too much stuff.

Sometimes I wonder if my stuff accumulation is really just a subconscious excuse for me to acquire more bags to hold said stuff.

Could be. Something to investigate.

Meanwhile…lots of stuff means lots of bags. And as is so often the case except for when we’re talking about asses or debt, bigger is better.

I have specific and inflexible rules about what styles of bag I like, and “canvas” and “durable” do not usually feature significantly in the description. Sometimes, though, fine Italian hand stitched leather isn’t going to cut it.

Hence? Your basic L.L. Bean Boat and Tote bag comes in a vast array of colors and sizes, and I recommend that everyone have a few of these around for last minute Holy Hell Shove Some Stuff in A Bag We’re Late For Lacrosse Practice moments. The extra large zip top jumbo bag, however, is a must for any household. You need one. Here’s why:

• You can put all the crap that has built up in your car oh come on, you know it’s there – wrappers, cans, bottles, papers, old gum, dog leashes, broken pencils, old lipstick, coffee cups – in the bag and put the bag in the trunk and it looks like your car is clean even though you are actually schlepping enough garbage to fill a dumpster.
• Your mother in law is coming over and bringing the priest who married you who she ran into at the grocery store and who really wants to see you and your new house which you keep saying you’ll invite her to see even though you moved in three years ago so it’s not really new anymore and the living room is trashed. Shove it all the in the bag. Bag in closet. Done. Welcome!
• You are an English teacher who has realized too late that the better career choice would have been Health and Phys. Ed which necessitates ONE research paper a year as opposed to daily homeworks and an essay a week and let us not forget about tests and quizzes.
• You can carry an ill-mannered or particularly sleepy child or perhaps a tiny adult in one of these. You can! Not that I’ve done it. But I could. If I needed to. And so could you. And I wouldn’t judge you.
• Company is coming to stay and you are forced to relocate your husband’s secret porn collection due to your guests’ children’s tendency to find the most inconvenient hiding places imaginable while playing hide and seek with your children. And yeah, I know…it’s probably time to edit the collection. Preaching to the choir.
• Save the planet! Put your groceries in one of these so you don’t have to find yet another place to shove those plastic bags that you think you’ll use to pick up dog poop but instead you trained your dog to poop in the neighbor’s pachysandra so you don’t have to clean it up in the yard. Of course, if you shop like I shop, you’ll give yourself a hernia trying to carry all your groceries in here at once – not that they wouldn’t fit.
• Laundry.
• Should someone appear at your door with airline tickets and the offer to watch your house/family/dogs/car for a week while you go to Europe providing you can pack in ten minutes, you can put everything in here and go. If this happens, please call me and tell me because I could really use this. I like Europe.
• Four pairs of ice skates, two sweaters, four pairs of gloves, three hats, two scarves, a spare pair of socks, two juice boxes, a camera, and a box of Girl Scout Cookies all fit in here. Want proof?
• And, finally, imagine the number of Hershey’s kisses you could fit in one of these suckers.