Reruns. Better than bupkes.

For all of you folks living on the edge of despair, take heart. Things can turn around overnight. I can’t go into details — would you believe it? I have limits! Who knew! — honestly, I’m happy to tell you anything about myself, but when it affects my family or my friends, I have to keep shtum. But let’s just say that starting with this, I have become a happy man.

Of course, since I’m Jewish, I know it can’t last. I’m already cherishing the memory.

I have an overwhelming desire to regurgitate an old post — my favorite — because when I’m happy, what do I want to do most?

Share my ‘nads with the world.

From nearly a year ago, I present,

Say Hello to My Little Friend

For the first year or two after we got married, Karen and I lived on campus. I focused on my preclinical course work while Karen built lasers and TA’d undergrad chemistry.One night, I noticed something new about my nuts.

“Karen. Look at this.”

“What?”

“It’s never done this before.”

“Oh, Christ, Doug. You could have warned me.”

“Now, come on. Look at it. Does this look familiar?”

Teeth clenched, lips not moving: “I don’t know.”

“You’ve looked at it. Doesn’t this look weird? . . . I mean, you have looked at it before, right?”

She made a careful study of my scrotum. Next to my right nad, I had a balloon-like swelling. It didn’t hurt, but it certainly didn’t belong there.

“I think there’s something called a hydrocele,” I said. “Or maybe a spermatocele. Or maybe it’s a hernia. Or a tumor.”

“You’re the medical student. Why are you asking me?”

“I was hoping maybe it had always been there, and I just hadn’t noticed.”

“Doug, your hands are down there a hell of a lot more often than mine are. If anyone would know, you would.”

Good point.

I decided to go to the student health center on campus. There had to be a night nurse there, right? Maybe even a more advanced medical student, someone who had seen a few testes. Maybe even a doctor.

By the time I got there, I was anxious as a tom cat in heat. I charged in, found the nurse, pulled her aside into the hallway. We were all alone, she and I, but I didn’t exactly want to do this in the waiting room.

“Look at this, would you? This just isn’t right.”

I dropped my pants and framed it with my hands, just like this:

Only instead of a smiley hacky sack, I had my hairy nut sack well in hand.

“I was getting ready for bed when I noticed it,” I said. I moved it this way and that, gave it a good going over like I already had a dozen times that night. “It’s never been like this before, I’m sure of it. My wife doesn’t even recognize it. I was getting ready for bed, and, like, I don’t know, maybe I was scratching myself, I mean it’s not like I’m scratching myself all the time, but this time when I did I felt this big swollen thing that had no business being there. I mean, look at it. I’m a medical student, but I don’t know what this is. I dunno, maybe a hydrocele, or a spermatocele, or a hernia, or, oh God, please don’t tell me you think it’s a tumor. You don’t, do you?”

I looked away from my right nut and looked her in the eye for the first time. She kinda looked like this.

“I — I — I’ll get the nurse.”

She was an undergrad, eighteen years old tops. Probably a volunteer.

“Um, sorry,” I said as I stuffed my goods back in my pants. “Busy clinic like this, I’ll bet you see that all the time.”

She backed away, stricken. I never saw her again. She didn’t call, didn’t write. As for me, my little visitor disappeared by the next morning. He never showed up again, either.

D.