In my youth, I got a vasectomy. I didn't have any children, just a jaded worldview. The doctor lectured me about the permanence of my decision, or at least the expense of changing my mind. When he finished, I still believed that families were guilt factories and that people could do without them. I also considered the Middle East a global tumor.

Then, one day, something happened. I was meditating in the closet when a what-if seeped into my brain: What if my wife Yahaira dies? What will remain of our love? The pain penetrated as if it were already true. I panicked.

When I emerged from the closet, I knew what I had to do: bear a child.

I arrived at the hospital with my life savings, for that is how much it costs to reverse a vasectomy. The nurse asked me to sign away my life, then laid me in bed. The anesthesia man injected me with pixie dust and started to melt. The nurse said something extremely slowly, then she melted too.

Four hours later, I was a new man. I was crippled.

There are sensitive areas on your body -- eyelids, nose hairs, underneath your fingernails -- then there are the testes, hub of all sensation. No matter how tough a man may act, he is always one swift kick away from nausea, paralysis, uncontrolled cursing, and fervent religious devotion.

That is how I woke up in the hospital. All I could feel was a prickling below the belt and a draft on my backside. I tried to roll over to cover my bum when a fireball shot through my stomach, up my chest and out of my mouth: "Ahhhhhhhhhh!"

A nurse's head appeared above. "Are you all right, hon?"

"I can't move."

"That's okay, hon. Your wife is here."

Yahaira's head appeared above.

"You look like hell," she said.

So it goes.

The anesthesia circled back to my brain, and I got the giggles. I'm not sure what was so funny -- pretty much the fact that I was laughing. I had slipped into that half-conscious delirium where some people are lucky enough to live. I started doing standup.

"Hey, babe, ever bagged a eunuch?"

"I wouldn't get near that thing -- it's loaded."

Yahaira drove home at 5 mph to protect the goods. Joggers passed us with questioning glances. It felt strange to be in the sun. Society didn't seem right. I belonged on the mother ship, where they experiment on my organs.

At home, I walked into a jungle of get-well balloons, a stack of videos, and a little bell on my nightstand. Wouldn't you cut open your privates for a woman like that? For the next three days, I sat in bed watching movies and testing my bell. Yahaira took it in stride, but I could see her wince at the ringing. It was like Pavlov's bell, only it triggered a different kind of saliva.

Dingaling. "Can you get me some water?"

Dingaling. "Can you bring me my book?"

Dingaling. "Can you read me my book?"

I regretted the water. In case you don't have syphilis, that is what it feels like to pee after a vasovasostomy. Once someone carries you to the bathroom, you carefully peel away your undies and, with the precision of a man diffusing a bomb, remove your member from its bloody gauze. Then you hang on for life.

Besides that, it was more or less like being kicked in the balls every hour on the hour. The Vicadin doesn't block the pain; it just confuses it with the feeling that you're about to vomit. The doctor suggested that I buy underwear that is two sizes too small. Me, I became a boxers guy the day they mocked my "tighty whities" in high school. Today I have new respect for cotton briefs and all the men who wear them.

It has been a week since the operation, and my parts are getting better. I tie my shoes all by myself and can sit in a chair without crying. This morning Yahaira brought me a card that read, "I miss you this much." When I opened it up, a condom fell out.

It won't be long till I can use it, but I'm going to hold out as long as possible -- I'm having too much fun with this bell.

I live beside a navy base. It occupies a stretch of coast where I would surf if it weren't for the shooting ranges. That's the problem with friendly fire -- it hurts just like the other kind.

The base spreads inland for 16 gazillion miles and is in the way of everything. I pass the barbed wire fences when I'm jogging, when I'm driving, when I'm too drunk to do either...

I'll tell ya, they've got their own little world in there.

Behind the armed guards and NO TRESPASSING signs is a grinning community, replete with shopping centers, movie theaters, and drive-through McDonalds...es. They've got their own golf course! What's more, they don't pay taxes on any of it. I hear you can buy a car in there for, like, a dollar.

For a long time, I struggled with this whole navy-behind-the-fence issue. It felt so separatist, so Us versus Them. The base was a giant Sam's Club where everyone was having a blast while I pressed my nose against the window trying to read the price tags.

I had to become a member.

In the recruiting office, I spoke to a gentleman with a square head. His name was Kirby. Kirby's jacket was decorated with medals, stars, decals, and happy faces from his first-grade teacher. He carried a trophy full-time.

"May I help you?" he asked.

"Yes, I was hoping to get on the base."

"Wanna do some shopping?"

With that, Kirby laughed harder at his own joke than any man ever should. That's why they assigned him recruiting, the cheery disposition. So it goes.

Kirby recovered over a glass of water and described the life of a Seabee from sunup to sundown. He talked about mandatory meetings, and my nether parts twitched. He mentioned manual labor, the kind they make you do in high school detention. He talked about vacation time, sick days, time cards. And no matter how far I tilted my head to one side, it looked like any other fool-time job.

Besides, you have to wear three different uniforms (not all at once).

Threatened by these developments, I grew silent. I needed time to think. Kirby asked if I wanted some water. I used a response that my wife finds very effective: I ignored him.

Thoreau warned against any venture that requires new clothes. My grandpa warned against men who match. I told my grandpa that he reminded me of Thoreau. He was offended because "they didn't know nothin' back then -- burp."

Kirby butted into my reverie.

"Or you can join the Reserves," he said.

I've never been reserved. I'm a guy who'll smoke the lump on the floor to find out what it is. But according to Kirby, by joining the Reserves I could get onto the base without jeopardizing my normal routine of screwing around all week.

Kirby explained the benefits of the Reserves and had me eyeing the dotted line up to the moment he said, "Of course, in the event of war, you would join our regular battalions overseas."
Insert sound of screeching tires.

"You mean to die?"

He laughed at the joke, but it was no wanna-do-some-shopping?

Kirby stood up straighter than God and said, "You won't fight for your country?"

In the grand scheme of things, I'm a pretty patriotic guy. I raise the flag on Memorial Day and know all the Presidents by heart. I rooted for the Patriots in the Super Bowl. But I don't feel that I've reached a point in my life where I could handle people shooting at me. I can hardly cope with dirty looks.

Kirby shook his head. He was disappointed in me. He would have to get in line.

"How 'bout I take a brochure and think it over," I said.

Kirby handed me a brochure. When I got outside, I accidentally dropped it in the trash. And as I walked away from those barricades, I no longer yearned to be on the other side. Reality sucked it out of me. Private golf is fine and good, but battle overseas?

If all those people in there are willing to man the U.S.S. Bulls-Eye to defend democracy, they deserve an untaxed paradise bordered with barbed wire. As for me, I'll keep rooting for the Patriots.