All that glitters is not gold...

On the morning of my vasectomy I decided to have a good scrub.

As I have said, it seemed like a considerate professional courtesy, and if I was a dentist, gynaecologist, or hairdresser, it was a courtesy I would certainly want extended to me.

Being a considerate householder and environmentally sensitive soul, and seeing that we were in the midst of water restrictions, it made sense to jump into the kids’ bath water after they had their morning bath.

After all, it wasn’t like I was planning a long soak, just a quick squatting scrub and rinse. A last minute mouth rinse as it were.

After I had finished and dressed, I was in the kitchen at the counter making a cup of coffee, when my wife, who had also used the bathwater before me, shouted from the bedroom where she was changing.

These were her exact words. Verbatim.

“You better check your pubes, I have got a whole lot of the kids glitter in mine” (sic)

A simple sentence for some.

Not for me. Within hours I was going to have my pubic hair very closely scrutinized and some of it shaved off by complete strangers.

Then, that self same area was going to be the focus area of a surgeon at a time when he needed his full wits and concentration about him.

This tit bit seemed a tad important.

Let me explain, one of the kid’s had got a birthday present from my mother who had given them a big jar of kiddies bubble bath. And inside, suspended in the bubble bath, were thousands of cut out foil shapes. Hearts, stars, crescent moons all in multicoloured, shiny, glittering foil. They were a kids delight and made the bath water glitter like the night sky as they sparkled suspended in the bath water.

It was these that my wife was talking about.

I whipped down my pants and went through my pubic hair better than any grooming chimp.

Eleven pieces (11). One more than ten.

Can you imagine the nurses shaving me for my vasectomy and finding eleven glittering foil cut outs of stars, hearts and crescent moons? In pink, gold and silver?

Can you imagine the doctor, about to make his first incision?

“My, this one has made a real effort!”

I felt giddy and a little dry mouthed at the nervous thought of what might have gone wrong.

If my wife hadn’t called out her warning to me, I would have lay back on the operating table, opened my legs and had the nursing staff find my pubic hair knotted with glittering pink foil stars.

I still wonder if they would have said anything.

I know my wife wishes she hadn’t.