Rock-a-bye Your Balls

I love the Wiggles.  Whether it’s the original Wiggly quartet with their big red car and their ‘middle aged white man’ choreography, or if it’s Wiggles 2.0 with their more socially acceptable gender balance, inter-wiggly romances and professionally trained dancing, I love them all.

I must confess though, that the reasons for my love are not entirely pure.  Most of their songs are irritating at best, and they’ve got a fabulous way of getting stuck in your head for days on end.  If I had a dollar for every full day that I’ve spent humming “fruit salad – yummy yummy” or “hot potato hot potato” I’d be almost as rich as the Wiggles themselves.

No, the reason that I love them is that they are the best and often only means of distracting our children long enough to actually get some shit done.  That’s right, I freely and wholeheartedly admit that sometimes I use television to distract our children.  Judge away judgey judgicus.

Like pretty much every kid on the planet, our kids are partial to all of the classics. Finding Nemo, Lion King and Frozen all get some airplay from time to time, but nothing holds their attention as completely as the Wiggles. Car journeys are the obvious occasion where they’ve bought me some instant peace, but I also rely on them from time to time when I simply need a few moments to myself without a little high pitched voice repeating my name every 8 seconds.

My most recent experience with the Wiggles however truly takes the cake, and it revolved around my vasectomy.

The procedure itself was so minor and inconsequential that it’s not even worth writing about, except to say that the urologist had the decency to ensure that his hands were warm, there was sport on the television screen on the ceiling (the grown man’s equivalent of the Wiggles), and he even paid me a compliment on the spaciousness of my scrotum. He sure knew how to make a guy feel special.

Likewise the recovery process was far better than expected.  I’m pleased to be able to report minimal discomfort, with no swollen purple balls or any of the other horror stories that you hear from time to time, and within a week I was fighting fit again.

The most challenging part of the entire vasectomy process, for me anyway, was the follow up fertility test.  For those that aren’t familiar with this part of the process, once everything is back in working order you’re expected to fire at least 15 rounds through the barrel before it’s safe to assume that the gun isn’t loaded any more.  Once you’ve  reached this milestone, you’re then expected to deliver a “sample” back to the lab to make sure that there’s no rogue swimmers still bobbing around. Seems so simple right?

There are however a few little twists that made this experience far from straight forward for me.

For starters, the sample has to be delivered to the lab within 45 minutes of deposit. Of course the labs don’t provide an on-site facility, so that means finding somewhere within 30 minutes or so of the lab (allowing for parking and a small margin of error) to fill the cup, and then getting it to the lab. Obviously public areas are off limits for this procedure lest you want to risk making the sex offender register.  This really only leaves the safety of your own home, which in my case is a 25 minute drive to the lab on a good day.

Coupled with this is the opening hours of the lab. Standard business hours only.  Not the ideal time to be doing non-standard business.

The real challenge in my case however is being a stay at home dad with a two year old daughter that doesn’t let you out of her sight for more than 20 seconds, and that’s just not enough time to get the job done – even for me.

So as you can see, the logistics of closing out this vasectomy process and confirming that the urologist was more than just a pair of warm hands and smooth one-liners were proving to be a bit challenging.  And that’s where the Wiggles came in.  With their help I was able to buy myself enough “daddy time” to sneak off and get the job done without Focker #2’s well intentioned (but highly inappropriate in this instance) company.

We never got to find out who was driving the Big Red Car that day, or whether Jeff  actually did wake up, because as soon as the lid was on the special cup I snatched Focker #2 away from the television and we were out the door, toot toot chugga chugging off to the lab, singing Hot Potato all the way.

So to the Wiggles, both old and current, thank you so much for providing a constant and reliable distraction for my children.  Your catchy tunes and colourful performances have once again bought me the time that I needed and for this I’m deeply appreciative.

Postscript: For the record, Focker #2 and I rolled up to the reception area of the lab with minutes to spare. I had sweat dripping off my forehead from the mad dash between my illegally parked car and the lab (carrying Focker #2 on one hip), and handed my precious little cup along with my dignity over to the receptionist.  She took her time checking that the paperwork was in order, gave the little cup a shake, and somehow, with the straightest of faces managed to dismiss me with a polite “thanks for coming.”