The First Cut Is The Deepest Ch. 1

I've come to the conclusion that kids are like cream cakes. Everyone loves them, they can bring supreme pleasure to your life. The best of times are to be had when it's just the two of you alone, sharing some quality time together. All too soon, you know they'll be gone, so you try to make the most of every second you have together.

Of course, too many of them make you feel sick!

I've got two kids now, one of them is still at the stage where she wants all your attention, nothing seems to satisfy her for longer than ten minutes, and all she ever seems to do is eat and sleep. She's a teenager; the other one's just a baby.

Yes, I know there's a long gap between the two of them, but I realised that I actually didn't need to have any sort of life of my own until I'm retired. After all, what would I want with money anyway? I'd only spend it enjoying myself, and it could be much better spent on Pokemon cards and Boyzone c.d. s.

Actually that's not fair. Looking at where the money goes month to month, allowing for an endless supply of nappies and milk and sleepsuits and cotton wool for the baby, and all the usual household expenses, there isn't actually much spare cash left. There was an occasion in March when I thought I had two pounds left at the end of the month, but the school realised they hadn't held a raffle or sponsored uniform day for almost a week by then, so they took that!

Anyway, it was after the second one came along that we decided to take drastic action. After a long discussion between my wife and I, we agreed that a vasectomy was the only real long term solution. When I say we agreed, I mean of course that she decided that was what would happen, and dinner went into the dog until I realised she was right.

She's an amazing woman, my wife. She has that ability women have of knowing all the levels at which a conversation takes place. Whereas I thought we were discussing a forthcoming sterilisation program, it turned out we were actually talking about how much I loved her, equality between genders, how often I make caustic remarks about her mother, whether I ogle other women, that I'm too lazy to do the ironing…the list is endless. For instance, I'd say "What if it affects my sex drive?" and she would reply "That will be a good thing, maybe it will stop you eyeing up that tart from number 23 every time she walks past." Not that this is true of course, the tart from number 17 has much nicer breasts.

I'd say "Will sex still feel the same" and she'd say things like "It doesn't matter either way, it's been so long since you last gave me a servicing I can't remember what it was like anyway!"

Now this surprises me, because when it comes to memory we are complete opposites. She seems to have a good memory in most things. She can remember me flirting with her sister in 1985, and recount every word I've ever said in every argument we've ever had, she always remembers our anniversary the day it occurs, whereas I always remember the day after. She forgets to get bin bags or shaving foam, but she knows what brand of shoes I was wearing the day we met. She always remembers my birthday, but always forgets that I have enough socks!

But I digress. It soon became clear that either we did it her way, or she'd wait until I was asleep and do it herself with two housebricks. I've never liked crushed nuts even on an ice cream, let alone in my underwear, so I gave in and went to find out what I had to do.

There's a small clinic in town called The Lodge, offers the service as a day procedure. I picked up a leaflet, and they made it sound very simple, very routine, very straightforward. Of course, a leaflet on double glazing makes it sound very cheap and affordable, but no-one believes those either. Still, I read on. I was okay with it until I got to the small print at the end. "The Lodge is the premier local training provider for this service in the South East, and offers GPs and other health professionals the chance to refresh their skills in this elective procedure"

WHOA! STOP! HOLD YOUR HORSES! Training? I'm offering my priceless jewels to someone with a scalpel who doesn't really know what they're doing? My local GP is fine at giving antibiotics and diagnosing migraines, but do I really want to lie there while he asks "Do I cut the red or the blue wire?" Trust me, if I'm giving my conkers to anyone, I want them to have done this since they were 7.

Other health professionals? What are we talking about here? Nurses? Medical students? Hospital porters? The receptionist? Christ, why not just lay me out and ask some wondering tramp if he wants a laugh? I'm expecting at least the Surgeon General, I certainly don't want some pimply youth who delivers pizzas in the evening wielding a very sharp knife near my nether regions, thank you very much.

It is at this point I begin to have some doubts.

I tried to discuss this with my wife. She crossed her legs very deliberately, and let me know in no uncertain terms that she could keep them crossed until Judgement day if need be. With a sigh, I called the number.

The first step is that we both attend counselling. Now I'd been told by my GP that there was a long waiting list for the actual procedure, but the counselling was to take place within a week. When the date duly arrived, off we trundled to the Lodge, to be met by the man himself, the doctor who would actually carry out the dirty deed.

This fellow had a moustache, which I immediately found worrying. Now, it wasn't that he appeared gay, which is one of the first things I think of when I see a man with a moustache. Don't ask me why, after all Tom Selleck as Magnum was a very non-gay man. Perhaps it's because when I grew up Queen was the biggest band around, and lets face it Freddie Mercury was the greatest gay icon ever, until George Michael decided to go propositioning the LA police force. No, what worried me was that this man was using his moustache as part of his body language. You know they way experts tell you these things; if you scratch your ear when someone's talking to you it means you don't want to hear any more, if you cross your arms it means you are trying to protect yourself, if you throw up all over someone it means they really are too ugly to be let out in daylight, that sort of thing. Well, I heard once that moustaches are a way of covering the mouth, so that it becomes harder to tell when they are lying. This man's eyes and his mouth were saying two different things, and the moustache was there to stop me realising the conflict between the two.

The mouth was saying "It's a simple procedure, highly effective, and you are making the right decision..." Meanwhile the eyes were screaming at me "Run, man, run. Don't do this, get out while you can"

Now the counselling procedure is designed purely to put you off. It's not meant to be, but that's what happens. First off, they ask if you're sure. Ha! Is anyone sure they want to go letting some stranger slice them open and delve into their scrotum with a pair of needle nose pliers? I don't think so. Once that's out of the way, they get down to brass tacks. He draws a diagram on the back of a piece of A4 paper, so I'm guessing about half actual size. He says he'll make incisions here and here, and will cut the tubes here and here, and remove a section about this long. By now, I'm on the floor, throwing up in the bin in the corner, and my wife is still watching avidly, with this strange glint in her eye that reminds me somehow of Dr Crippen. I slowly swim back to reality through the black treacle of fear which has descended upon my brain, just in time to hear him telling me that of course they numb the area first with a local anaesthetic.

Local? Pardon me? Did I hear correctly? I don't get put to sleep? No, no, he laughs easily, sadistically, my god how can he do this to another human being? He tells me they'll just insert a needle directly into my groin and that'll be that. I faint. So, I'm not asleep, I'm fully conscious, and now I'm going to let someone pierce my groin with a hypodermic? Oh I don't think so. Strangely, the thought of a needle in the crotch is worse to me than the scalpel was. Perhaps it's the phallic imagery? Perhaps it's the conscious memory of all those inoculations when at school? No, I think it's just I hate needles anyway and the last thing anyone in their right mind is going to do it let someone loose near their scrotum with a sharp object. Sudden visions of bursting balloons float through my mind like the worst kind of hallucinogenic high.

Then what do I notice? The good doctor is shaking. His left hand trembles minutely as he draws more diagrams and makes notes. Not a good sign, I can assure you. If this is the guy who's going to do the deed, I want him to have nerves of steel, the rock steady concentration of a bomb disposal expert. I want this guy to move less than Mount Everest. I'm just about ready to turn to the door and run for the hills when he asks when we'd like to book for? I'm fine with any time after I'm dead, about 2090 should do nicely. In the most helpful way possible, he tells me they have a cancellation next Friday morning, would that suit? 10 days, just over a week and it's bye-bye fish, just an empty stream left. I want to shake my head, I want to thank him for his time and leave, but I pause first and glance at my wife. She makes a gesture, like two housebricks being slammed together, and I say that'll be fine.

I'm now in that hiatus period, today is Friday, and the job is due in one week. I have seven days left to enjoy my manhood, revel in my last days of virility, and wake screaming and sweating in the night. A final week to persuade myself that this is a good thing, it won't hurt a bit, and voluntarily removing parts of my body which work just fine is an eminently sensible idea. Hmm, I could just run off and become a mountain goat shepherd in Moravia…sounds like a great idea, what was that e-bookers site called again?