Two weeks ago, I had surgery on my balls. My urologist removed a cluster of cysts that may have been the cause of chronic pain I’ve had for two years. They could have also developed into something more dangerous, so we said goodbye. When I told my close friends and family what I was having done to me they winced and said,

“Oh man. Really? Why?”

Why?

“Because I hear it’s better than sex,” I told them. “Imagine a BJ, HJ, RJ and donkey punch all rolled into one!”

“What’s a donkey punch?” My Bubbie asked.

It was even more awkward telling my co-workers. When you say you’re having surgery, that’s not good enough. People are curious.

Me: Just wanted to let you know that I won’t be in Friday. I’m having a little procedure done.

Co-worker: Is everything okay?

Me (sucked in by her compassion): Yeah. Just having something done to take care of an issue I’ve been having.

Co-worker: What kind of procedure?

Me (motioning toward my groin) : A uh…a urology procedure.

Co-worker: Oh.

Sick of explaining myself, I finally drew the line. Three days after my surgery, I went outside for the first time and did a very limited walk. As I limped by like a codger nearing the end of his days, a neighbor stopped me.

“You’re limping,” he said, staring at my crotch. “Everything okay?”

“Yes. I had elbow surgery. Laparoscopic. No bandages necessary.” And I hobbled away.

I had hernia surgery as a baby and my wisdom teeth extracted when I was 29. Otherwise, my most invasive procedure was a prostate exam that my Internist thoroughly enjoyed (I can still feel his finger). A week before this procedure, the scheduler told me what to expect on the day of my surgery. She was nice, but she failed to explain that my fight-or-flight would supercharge as I laid naked under a hospital smock in the pre-surgery station stuck with an I.V., reminding me that this was only the beginning and preventing me from fighting or flying. You see, I convinced myself that I’d be the one unaffected by anesthesia and conscious as the doctor cut into me.  Once in the O.R., however, the anesthesiologist put an oxygen mask on me and said I’d feel something warm through the I.V.  I remember next waking up from what felt like the best nap of my life.  No dreams. No semi-conscious feelings. Nothing. Sleep should feel like this all the time. Perhaps Michael Jackson had it right Propofoling himself to sleep every night, and we’re the fools. My mind had been erased. For all I knew, I was taken outside in public and humped one by one by the urologist and his assistants.  But then I felt ice down below and only mild stinging.

The first 36 hours were easy. Before surgery, I’d feared ungodly swelling and pain. Instead I felt calm and pretty undamaged. I just swallowed the pills prescribed to me and rested in bed.  Sunday afternoon there was pain. Walking hurt. Sitting really hurt. I was much more aware.

“The anesthesia is probably out of your system,” Amy said.

“Put it back.”

My post-surgical honeymoon had ended. The Versed fairy dust faded. I had to settle for Norco, which is watered down Vicodin. I responded very well to Vicodin when my wisdom teeth were pulled. It made me feel super. Now I was like a heroin addict slumming it with methadone.

A man is defined by his testicles. They are his most vulnerable and prideful possession. Wound them and you wound all of him. I’ve roughed it with a stiff neck, sprained ankle and the flu. You can’t with balls in pain. It is an absolute state. All you want is to heal and for nothing to disrupt that.  So when Amy put Jake on the bed to say hi to me, I said no.

“Please,” I said. “I can’t have him land in my lap.”

A little later, I carefully walked downstairs to the kitchen where Amy was washing dishes and Jake played.

“Hey buddy.”

Jake looked at me suspiciously and hid behind Amy.

“Come here bud.”

He wedged between Amy’s leg and the cabinet.

I had no options downstairs. I was too tender to sit even on the couch. Bending over to pick up a toy hurt, conversation with Amy was limited to my pain, and to my son, I was the Elephant Man.

I returned upstairs and remembered how Aetna termed the necessity of my surgery: Elective. That made me sound like an asshole, like I campaigned and held town-hall meetings to win votes for my sack surgery:

“Mr. Telisman, when they remove the cysts from your balls, will they bring music classes back to our schools?”

“Yes.”

The doctor’s office initially instructed me not to lift anything 10 pounds or heavier for two weeks. Then they said four weeks. Not too bad, I thought.  I’ll just wait it out. Only that lifting nothing over 10 pounds and being a husband and father don’t co-exist well. It has its cans and cant’s:

Cant’s

• Take out the garbage
• Carry an over-stuffed grocery bag
• Hold a full laundry basket
• Change Jake’s diapers
• Bathe Jake
• Feel connected to my son

Cans

• Watch TV  (Pawn Stars is an excellent show, by the way)

Amy has had to carry the whole load, and I feel awful about it.  I tried helping by standing over her shoulder and observing her. As if this made that Costco Pampers box any lighter. So I retreated to our room and watched Sober House with Dr. Drew.

Amy understands the recovery process. It’s different with Jake. I explained the situation. I sat down, guarding my groin.

“Daddy had surgery on his nuts, so I have to be careful for a few weeks.”

“Cuddle?” Jake asked.

“I can’t,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“Cuddle,” and he tried sitting in my lap, but I blocked him at arm’s length. He looked at me as though he did something wrong. I stood up and made him settle for a short kiss on the head. Part of me died inside.

It’s gotten easier, though. Jake has learned not to expect much from me. He has satisfied his need for my affection by saying “Hi Daddy,” from across the room rather than wanting a hug. He does slip up, though. For example, yesterday, as we walked up the stairs together, he asked me to hold him.

“Hold you?” He asked.

“Buddy I can’t.”  And he simply nodded and walked on his own.

Transportation has been another challenge. When not recovering from ball surgery, you don’t think twice about how your son will get in and out of the car. You just lift him in and lift him out. But when you can’t lift him, your wife must put him in the car in the morning. Then you meekly ask the daycare lady if she wouldn’t mind walking out to the driveway in the cold to carry him. For four weeks. One more thing, you ask your wife. Can you take an earlier train so she can meet you at the house to lift him out of the car?   At least the latter has stopped. Amy suggested seeing if Jake could let himself out of the car, so we practiced. Amy put him in his seat and asked him if he could get out. He hopped off onto the car floor and then slid out. I imagined this is how midgets do it. I pictured Verne Troyer getting out of his Escalade the same way, except from the driver’s seat and breaking his fall with hands and feet.

I am feeling better. Last week I started to turn the corner. I can’t bear to look down at it.  Like so many things, I’ve asked Amy to do it for me. She says it’s healing. I’ve felt more comfortable around Jake and vice versa. I’m still cautious, but now I put my arm around him on the couch. My hope is that I’ll be fully recovered and pain-free in another two weeks.

And that Jake doesn’t remember a single moment of it.

My childless, asshole friend recently told me that the inside of my car looked like a dumpster.

“You’re wrong,” I said, insulted.

To prove it to him, we drove around the corner behind Dominick’s, my local grocery store. I perched myself on the wall of a brown dumpster. There were a few flies and some smears, but otherwise the garbage of mainly produce boxes, paper towels and hard bread just sat obediently.

“Come take a look, chickenshit,” I said, but he didn’t.

That dumpster, I told him, is nowhere near as messy as my car. The outside was even nicer. At least the dumpster was a glossy brown, while my car looks perpetually engulfed in a gray cloud with its salt and muck streaks.

“Now get out of here,” I finished.

My car is this way for two reasons. Well, three.

1) I have a small child

2) There’s no point in washing your car in Chicago in the winter. It will start snowing as you’re exiting the car wash, then a salt truck will inevitably spray you. (Laugh now you smug Floridians. I’ll laugh during hurricane season when I still have my roof.)

3) I’m too lazy to clean and vacuum my car.

Searching for something on the floor of my car is like exploring an archaeological dig. They could film the next Shia Labeouf-less Indiana Jones there. I feel both shame and adventure when I’m looking behind the seats.

Adventure:

Last week, I discovered a sippy cup that pre-dated the Obama Administration. I also found a fully intact chocolate Teddy Graham from when the New York Giants were defending Superbowl champions.

Shame:

Uncovering  old W-2′s and a urine test result.

The condition of my car can be avoided if we never left the house and kept Jake caged in the basement crawl space, like I keep suggesting. When I’m driving Jake somewhere he does this:

“Boodidee,” or blueberry. With a hand and my left eye on the wheel, I’ll grab a bag of Trader Joe’s dried blue berries from the diaper bag and hand it to him.  He’ll eat some until his hand is violet and say,

“No boodidee.”

“But I just gave them to you.”

“All done.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yesth.”

Naturally, I won’t be able to reach the bag, and Jake will grow impatient.

“All done.”

“I understand, but I can’t reach.”  I’ll prove this by straining and failing.

“All done!”

“Can you wait till we get to that red light?”

“NO!” And he’ll whip them to the floor.  Since I can’t see the bag,  the spilled blueberries and blue powder, I do nothing, and then I forget. Out of sight, out of mind.

Over the course of the winter, which starts here in September and ends in June, these things add up. I’m pretty sure my car is starting to compost itself, and that’s appropriate because I drive a Prius. About a year ago, Toyota ran a commercial where the Prius did just that. Remember? First it looks new, and its state keeps changing until it’s literally part of the environment. Pretty good advertising because by May,  my hybrid will be part evergreen with fragrant leaves that never shed.  But they didn’t mention anything about my floor mat potentially killing me.  I think the recall notice is somewhere on the car floor, composting. I’m not worried about getting hurt because Amy’s been driving the Prius while I’ve been on sack rest (more on this in an upcoming blog).  I can always count on her to take one for the team.

When we lived in the city, we often saw the same three overstuffed cars parked in different places at different times in our neighborhood. They were each completely consumed—except for the driver’s seat—with the contents of a house: papers, boxes, food , coffee makers, books and games. All pretty neatly organized, too. Who thought one could fit so much in a car? We figured the owners lived in their cars.

“You’re one of them now,” Amy jokes.

“How do you mean?”

“Your car is messy like those cars.”

“You’re wrong,” I said, insulted. “Mine’s worse. Let’s drive down there, and I’ll show you.”

She declined my invitation.

For my birthday, Jake spent the night at my in-laws’, and Amy and I went for a nice dinner in the city. My in-laws picked up Jake and dropped him off the next morning, which I now expect them to do every time they babysit.

“Thank you so much,” we said.

“It’s our greatest pleasure,” they said, perhaps not understanding the enormity of that statement.

In certain circles, “Greatest Pleasure” refers to time spent with a grandchild or some shit like that. I define it as that plus door-to-door service when we say so.  The pleasure is mine, guys.  Really, any time.

Jake likes the arrangement as well—a little too much. Normally when we dump him on someone, he’ll cry and literally cling to us, which is the only time he makes me feel loved. He couldn’t have been happier leaving on Saturday.

“Can you give Daddy a kiss?” I said, and he turned away and let himself out the door.

“What if this is the last time you see me?” I yelled after him. “What if I die tonight?”  He just toddled faster toward G’ama and Poppa’s car.

I closed the door, and we were childless, if only temporarily. Amy and I smiled coyly at each other and did what most young parents do in a situation like this: nothing. Nothing is beautiful and requires less energy than ravaging each other. We had two hours to kill. For 40 minutes I stood still in the living room, only exerting myself to breathe, like a sloth. I showered for 68 minutes, sampling all of our body-washes (Lavender makes my arms tingle.).  I brushed my teeth twice and got dressed during the remaining 12.

Amy made reservations at Table 52, Art Smith’s restaurant, who was Oprah Winfrey’s personal chef. The host sat us at the table nearest the door, which was as close as you could get to sitting outside on that winter night. I asked for another option, and the host kindly found another table. Table 52 is cozy, and the tables are surprisingly close together. From what we heard, the food was excellent. We’d previewed the menu online but still wanted to look at the real thing and check out the specials. I tried telling Amy what I wanted, but the woman sitting not three feet from her drowned out the entire restaurant.

“Adderall really fucks you up!” She bellowed, waving her glass of red wine. “My brother needs to get me more of that shit!”

I shrugged it off, figuring she was a person like the rest of us, just having a moment. But her voice remained unchanged.

“When my dad took us to fucking Hawaii, that was a good fucking time,” she continued. “We should really go to Italy next.”

Amy grinned at me. We discussed the golden beet salad as a starter and then,

“I knew you liked my tits in this dress.  So did Patrick!”

At this point it was hard not to pay attention to her. She looked about 30 and spoke in a raspy, whiny voice. She sat across from her date/patron, a quiet, clean-shaven stout man. But he fooled no one. Rather than shut her up, he simply responded to her, as if conversations like this were appropriate for such a restaurant.

“You should always wear that dress out,” he said calmly, in response to her tits comment.

Had she behaved more like a lady, she may have been pretty.  Then again, I kind of wanted to hear what she’d say next, as long as it wasn’t anti-Semitic.

Our server shared his recommendations.

“The Low Country Jambalaya is very popular. It’s slow cooked, and it’s got bay scallops, crawfish, Amish chicken and chorizo.”

“What happened with Patrick and that chick from the party? He totally fucked her!”

The non-vulgarian female neighbor sitting on Amy’s other side widened her eyes. Our server cleared his throat.

“Also very popular is the Maple Sugar Short Ribs. It’s served with a smoked potato puree…”

“I knew he fucked her!”

“Caramelized pearl onions…”

“That bitch is a fucking liar!”

“Uh, and cooked in a red wine reduction.”

“Twat!”

During our appetizers we learned that the couple next to us, whom we’d later befriend, had moved from our table. The husband said we provided a nice buffer.  We also discovered that Patrick was a pussy because he never liked to sixty-nine.

I never caught the woman’s name, but let’s just call her Margot Kidder because she had dark hair, crazy eyes, and this must have been the way Margot acted during her meltdown and subsequent homeless episode. There couldn’t have been a greater juxtaposition between this wine-sloshing brute and my wife, who were sitting next to each other.  I wanted to feel some sort of good will toward her, but then she yelled at their server for bringing cornbread pudding instead of macaroni and cheese.  She debriefed with her date/patron:

“You know, when you come to a nice place like this, you expect more!” She said, completely unaware of the irony.

We ordered the Low Country Jambalaya as Margot and her small date settled up.

“I’m buying,” she said.   Ah, what a mensch.   “And you better give me cunnilingus.”

The train wreck left, and a few staff apologized to us. The food and service were incredible, and we chummed up to the other couple next to us, also on a date night. We spent our time trying to figure out what we had witnessed. Disaster brings people together.

The next morning, my in-laws delivered Jake, and it was back to reality for us. My mother-in-law brought him in, and he looked disappointed to be back from the party.

“Hi baby,” Amy said.

“No Mommy,” replied Jake.

I knelt to him. “Be grateful that she is your mommy,” I said. ”Let me tell you about this woman from last night.”