A friend of mine delights in telling me that he has a hernia. He looks me squarely in the eyes and his lips curl up like he's about to laugh that mad scientist laugh -- mwah-ha-ha-ha-ha! Mad scientists have the craziest laughs, don't they? Then he pauses, thinking about the best way to attack this juicy bit of news. "I have a hernia," Gary says, his voice almost proud, hauty, condescending. Scornful because I don't have one. It's like a person who buys the newest I-phone, I-pod, I-pad or maxi-pad and clearly wants to make you envious of them because they have the latest technology, they have something you don't have and they are hoping you will be jealous of them. But, really, a hernia doesn't seem to fit into this category, does it?
He announces this news like he's Yahweh at the burning bush and I am Moses. I guess I am supposed to write this hernia thing down on a stone tablet and pass it around to all the men I know who have testicles. That leaves quite a few of my friends out. Anyway, Gary can't lift the stone tablet because it is heavy and that would only aggravate his hernia so he needs an accomplice. When my doctor told me not to lift anything heavy, I just stopped using the urinal.
Anyway.
I do not take the bait. I just stare at Gary, slack-jawed and hoping he will stop at "I have a hernia." Of course, that doesn't happen.
"You wanna see me push it in?"
No. I really do not want to see him push it in. I decide to deflect with humor -- "Can you push it in with your tongue?"
This annoys Gary because he wants the star of this party to be him and his hernia. He is tired, I suppose, of me always being the belle of the ball (to use a very appropriate analogy here). I always seem to rain on people's parades but what can I say?
"No, I can push it in with my 2 fingers. It's really cool."
I think otherwise. To me, that area of the body is a temple, sacred, something to be honored, something serious, something to be thought of and contemplated in the privacy of your own home or in the bathroom of a university student center. If I want to think of someone's "down there," I prefer to think of it as a proud, tall, sequoia-like stalk of angry red happiness. Maybe maybe that's just me.
Gary continues to talk about this hernia thing. Telling me when he first noticed it, how big it gets, how the skin gets pulled thin and taut like a balloon. Theoretically, I know all this and, to be honest, I really prefer to leave this information as mere theory. The reality of it scares me. I have heard that you can strangle on these things and I am a Taurus with the nagging throat problems that seem to afflict people with that sign. Strangling on my hernia is something that frightens me.
I feel my throat start to tighten up. I might gag. For the first time in months, I can specifically feel my uvula.
I cut to the chase. "When's your operation?"
"The Tuesday after Memorial Day," Gary says.
"Good. I'll send flowers or chocolate or girlie magazines. But I will not visit and I will not look at your scars and I will not listen to what the doctor said to you about your hernia being as big as a Florida grapefruit."
Because, to be honest, I just want to think about my friends, Gary included, as healthy, young, unimpaired, vital and completely intact people who will live forever with their proud, tall, sequoia-like stalks of angry red happiness ready to go at a moment's notice.
Is that so wrong?
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