It was high noon in the waiting room, but not high enough. The valium I was given to take before the procedure wasn't nearly as strong as it should have been. These people were trying to sedate a Yeti with one bottle of Zima, and my body wasn't buying. As a result, I was becoming increasingly nervous. I checked my armpits for any signs of catastrophic deodorant failure. I was still doing fine, but I was sure enough that once the apprehension really started to mount that my morning dose of Right Guard would have the staying power of Jennifer Beals.

I checked my watch. 12:10. My appointment was at noon, but my doctor likes to keep us sitting for a long time so he can make some extra cash busting up blood clots. I checked my watch again. 12:10. Damn! Where does the time not go? The stress was beginning to get to me. Whenever I'm nervous and forced to wait, my body makes peculiar movements. I was rubbing my forehead and chin so much that the guy across the room thought I was signaling for a double steal. I looked down at my leg and my foot was tapping in a cadence so rhythmic that it almost defied Caucasian natural law. The annoying tapping got so bad that people began to come up and see who was scratching me behind the ears.

I looked to find something to occupy my time. I reached for a couple of magazines and tried reading. I checked out the "Life" magazine. Did you know that Amelia Earhart is going to try to fly around the world? Gee, I hope it goes well. The issue of "People" was so old that it should have been called "Person". I was glad to see that Fatty Arbuckle made the "25 Most Beautiful People" list though. Heavy people are discriminated against nowadays. Put a hundred extra pounds on George Clooney and he's just another busboy at Mongolian Barbecue.

There wasn't much interesting reading at that table, so I went to another table where there were some more magazines, but I couldn't get to them because the area was roped off by a team of Michigan State University archaeologists who were carefully attempting to excavate a fossilized Readers Digest.

At about 12:30 I was finally called in. I went through the door and the nurse said, "Room C" (I take it the 'C' is for 'Castration'). As I walked into room C, I observed the table with all the equipment on it. Scalpels, suction things, cross-cut saws, drills and something resembling a stainless steel weedwacker. The devices were placed on a cloth covered table in a neat circular pattern that you'd find in the room of any anal retentive psychopathic slasher. Either my vasectomy was about to take place or they were getting ready to shoot a sequel to "Dr. Giggles." I asked the nurse how it is that they can call it a "scalpel" when they're not using it on a scalp. "In this case, shouldn't they call it a 'Ballsel'?" She seemed unamused, and I feared that my joking had just cost me about 3 "pain points"

Once I was on the table laying on my back, the doctor stood in between my legs and a nurse stood on each side of me. Apparently there was some "triangulation of crossfire" strategy which would be employed. Standard practice for any good team of assassins. As the doctor was about to inject the local anaesthetic, he called out, "A little prick." I took offense.

"Hey, I know I'm Irish, but don't forget that it's also pretty damn cold in here, and..."

"I'm talking about what you're going to feel when the needle goes in." I could tell the doctor wanted to follow that sentence with the word "dumbass", but he didn't want me to skip out on the co-pay, either.

Once the area was numbed, I was a little more at ease. As much at ease as you can be with The Three Stooges fumbling with your genitals. As I laid on the table, I remembered reading the part of the pre-procedural instructions which told me, "Often, the doctor will have soothing music in the background to keep the patient more relaxed during the vasectomy." Just as I began wondering where the soothing music was, the doctor asked that the window be open. Outside that window is a busy street, and I spent the next half hour being "soothed" by traffic noises, bus fumes, and a guy arguing with some woman about who the best professional wrestler is while they rummaged through a garbage bin, presumably searching for their missing chromosomes.

All the street noise added to my stress level and my sweat glands were working like the bartender at a Kennedy family reunion. I was put a little more at ease though when the doctor announced that he was almost finished. It really wasn't as bad as I'd expected. The apprehension was purely psychological, but that can be the worst kind. I told the doctor that I could have used a little more pre-procedure medicine, and the next time he works on me to jack up the dosage a little bit. He'll know I'm sufficiently baked when he sees me outside chasing passing airplanes with a fly swatter. At least, that's how my neighbors know.

Any vasectomy always has the obligatory sperm count check about a month later. On my way out of the doctor's office the nurse handed me a glass tube. A small glass tube. Really small, with an opening at the top wide enough to accommodate a Tinkertoy at best. How I'm going to be able to hit that opening is beyond me. Next week I'm going down to Camp LeJune to take a little Marine Sharpshooter training. And not only is the opening incredibly small, the tube itself is flimsy. They must not know of my aggressiveness. I feel like I've been asked to try and get a raging elephant into a tinder box.

The nurse also mentioned that the specimen should be no more than a half an hour old by the time it arrives in their office. Now, I live 40 minutes from the doctor's office, which, if my calculations are correct, means that I'd really, really recommend that you stay off I- 96 that day. I hope I don't get pulled over. It could be the first police report in history to have the words "driving", "excessive speed", "Puff's Plus", "Victoria's Secret catalog", "Jergen's", "red ears" and "apparent carpal tunnel syndrome" all in the same sentence. If you see a guy weaving in and out of lanes and steering with his knees, be sure to give a wave, will you? Just don't be offended if I don't wave back.

When I finally get the sample to the doctors office, I'll just thank him for a job well done, hand him the full vile, and say, "Here, I put a head on it for you."

All in all it wasn't a bad experience and it was time for it to be done. I've filled the world with my share of kids. Quite frankly I'm surprised that the government didn't offer to pay for it. The procedure went as well as it could and I'd recommend it to any man as a great form of birth control. It sure as hell beats my old method: Thinking about Bea Arthur.

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