“Low motility.” That was the diagnosis. My sperm sucked.
The news was disheartening, for sure. Felicia and I had been trying to conceive for over a year. When we didn’t have any success, we both got checked out. She was fine. I wasn’t. Typical me.
I followed the urologist’s instructions: boxers instead of briefs, avoided temperature extremes, and even changed my diet to a more Mediterranean one. Every follow-up visit brought the same result: low motility. My name’s Larry Mangold. We even have the same initials.
I’ve gone all over the world to find the best food. Six continents, thousands of regions, countless dishes; all in search of the perfect meal. For a while, I thought it may never happen. There was always something a little off; salt, freshness, temperature – tiny, niggling complaints that, to anyone else, would be meaningless. To me, though, they were the difference between perfection and mundanity. My quest went on.
During my travels, I’d learned about an “underground supper club” in Moscow which met once a year. While “underground supper club” sounds mysterious and illicit, it’s just a place that operates casually, aka: without a food license. Chefs all over do it all the time for their friends. I’ve been to many.
This one was supposed to be different. They had the best caviar.
Caviar is a luxury item, but even in luxury-obsessed Russia, it’s started to fall out of favor because of sustainability issues. It’s still widely available, but the good stuff is getting harder and harder to find. The “best stuff” is nearly impossible to get a hold of. It’s locked down by the oligarchs and heads of state; if you’re not one of them or in close company, you’re out of luck. So when I heard that supper club would be serving the best of the best, I knew I had to get in there.
I’m chef Geoffrey Zakarian’s personal espresso maker and latte-foam artist. Yes, that’s a real job. With benefits, in fact. Great health and dental.
One of the perks of my occupation, aside from hanging out with GZ and getting to eat many of my weekly meals at his outstanding restaurant, The Lamb’s Club, is the access I enjoy at The Food Network’s studios and associated properties.
GZ is a pretty big deal over there, which I’m sure you know if you’ve watched the network for more than a few hours. Aside from Chopped!, which is his best-known show, he’s building a new audience with the Saturday morning feature, The Kitchen. His personality fits so well with whatever he’s in, though, and it’s just great to be a part of it.
I’m totally fanboying right now. Sorry. I hope that doesn’t sound disrespectful in the face of what happened.
When I was in college, I dated a biologist named Maria. Well, a biology undergraduate. She was a lot of fun, albeit slightly odd. Being a bit odd myself, we hit it off right away. Our first date lasted almost 12 hours – the entirety of which was spent talking as we sipped terrible coffee in a 24-hour diner.
Maria told me she wanted to focus on entomology after undergrad, then started to regale me with passionate stories about the local banana slug.
I was familiar with the banana slug. Everyone on campus was. They have an unfortunate habit of falling out of trees and landing on the heads of unsuspecting students and faculty. Being around 8” long and remarkably disgusting, having one plop on one’s head is pretty close to a living nightmare. My first month on campus, one missed me by inches and splattered on the concrete. I was picking slug out from between my shoelaces for a week.
My trouble started when I realized I was out of razorblades and waxing supplies and my crotch looked like the Amazon rainforest before the mechanization of the logging industry. My date was due to arrive in half an hour. So, I resorted something unconventional. Something, I now realize, was not the best idea.
I’m going to give a little backstory first. I’m not ashamed to say I enjoy sex. The widespread belief that a woman should suppress her sex drive because society finds it “improper” has always disgusted me. Sex is great. Safe sex is wonderful. I respect myself and I respect the men I sleep with. All I ask is that I receive the same respect in return. It’s just two people making each other happy.
Now, I’ve known this since I was fifteen. Two decades of positive experiences have only strengthened my feelings on the subject. That said, there are a few personal responsibilities I feel I have, such as keeping current with the shaving trends. I’m not a huge fan of the concept behind shaving myself, to be honest. If you think about it, it’s actually kind of creepy, but I’ll still admit I enjoy the sensation of hairlessness. I guess it’s a tradeoff.
I prefer to shave, but I’ve waxed myself a lot, too. I have to be careful, though, because I’m allergic to some of the waxes on the market. I don’t know what particular chemical or fragrance it is that causes the irritation, but the itchy rash it produces keeps the downstairs out of business for over a week while it clears up. No one wants to pull off a thong and see that staring them in the face.
So, back to the other day. I found something in the apartment I thought would work like wax, so I tried it out. It hurt like hell and was an absolute bitch to wash off, but it did the job. My date arrived when he said he would. We hit it off at dinner and we ended up back at my apartment, where we both managed to achieve orgasm despite being so full from our meals that we were like two beached whales slapping against one another. Since we both had to get up early the next morning, we said our goodnights and he went home.
The itching woke me up before dawn. It started with my armpits, but then moved to my, if I may use the medical terms, box and asshole. I got out of bed and went into the bathroom. The mirror confirmed my assumption: that damn allergic reaction again. Welts were forming in extremely sensitive areas and it looked like I was already getting a bunch of ingrown hairs. I braced myself and doused the affected areas in rubbing alcohol, hoping none of the ingrowns would get infected. I showered and scrubbed, then went back to bed. I still itched.
When I got up to shower, the swelling looked pretty nasty and the ingrowns, despite my best efforts, were starting to get whiteheads. I got up and left for work. I sat in my cubicle feeling utterly miserable. The itching was way worse than any of the reactions I’d had before. When I got up to use the bathroom, I checked the damage.
I almost threw up. A nearly perfect triangle of densely-clustered whiteheads occupied the entire area I’d waxed. Even worse, and this is going to be gross but there’s no real way to talk around it, they’d been popping the whole time I was sitting at my desk. My underwear was soaked.
After cleaning myself up as best I could, I talked to my boss and told her I needed to leave early. She said it was no problem, so I left and headed straight to the walk-in clinic.
I lucked out and got seen right away. The doctor raised her eyebrows to the ceiling when she saw the reaction I was having, but quickly reassured me that she sees people who get skin irritation from hair removal all the time. She gave me some kind of ointment to rub on it twice a day and said if it doesn’t improve in a week, she’d give me something stronger.
I cancelled the date I had with the nice guy from the other night. I felt pretty bad, but he was understanding. He said was that he had to go on a business trip the next day and would be gone for a week. I told him that I looked forward to his return, assuming a week from then I’d be in the clear.
Spoiler: I wasn’t.
I applied the ointment diligently for a few days and most of the whiteheads stopped appearing. The swelling, though, persisted. Same with the itching. My armpits weren’t particularly bad, but my, well, perineum, and the surrounding area, was a disaster area. It was super swollen and it hurt to walk and use the bathroom.
The other night, six days after I’d seen the doctor, the itching turned to flat-out pain. It wasn’t unbearable, and if it had been, I would’ve gone to the emergency room right away, but it was enough to keep me tossing and turning in bed. The clinic started seeing patients at 6am and I was planning to be the first person there when the doors opened.
As the night dragged on, I felt steadily-intensifying pressure on the affected area. It got bad. I scratched through my pajamas and felt small pops under my fingernails. When I pulled my hand away, my fingers were wet. I gagged. Off to the shower I went.
Because I like you guys, I’m not going to be as graphic as I could be. However, I can assure you this will be extraordinarily unpleasant to read. Before I jumped in the shower, I used my phone to take a quick picture of my perineal area. No, I won’t share it with you. But my God, I wish I hadn’t seen it. The small whiteheads in the area had clustered into a few very large ones. They bulged out of the skin almost half an inch and I knew right away that they were the cause of the pressure I was feeling.
I deleted the picture, got in the shower, and squeezed the biggest one as hard as I could. Its contents splattered on the floor of the bathtub like a pasty spitball. I watched as the water washed away the gooey parts. I bent down to look at what remained, screamed at the top of my lungs, threw on my clothes, and drove myself to the hospital.
Don’t worry, I’m going to be fine. I got to speak to a lot of specialists, though; lots of smart doctors whose curiosity was obvious. They kept me there for a few hours and cleaned up my crotch and armpits pretty thoroughly. Then I was discharged with a bunch of medications and tasked to share a bit of hard-learned advice. So here it is!
Always make sure the skin you’re about to remove hair from is clean. Be mindful of the sharpness of your razor when shaving, and if waxing, do your best to avoid any chemicals you might be sensitive to. Stay away from depilatory products that haven’t been evaluated by the FDA. This includes, but is not limited to, creams, lasers, and waxes.
Further, homemade depilatory products are discouraged. That was my mistake. Well, one of two. No one should ever, ever use flypaper for hair removal, especially flypaper that’s not right out of the box. This is because no matter how clean it looks or how meticulously you picked the flies out of their sticky confines, they may leave pieces behind. In my case, those pieces were eggs.
Keep in mind, I’d never even considered giving a ride to a stranger before. All my life, I’d been told that’s how you get killed. “Only crazies hitchhike,” they’d say. “They’ll cut your throat and steal your car and you’ll be dead in a ditch.”
I didn’t want to die in a ditch. And I liked my car. But after I’d left the gas station and I saw the poor guy sitting in the gutter on the I-95 onramp, feebly holding out his thumb, I made my choice. I’d be a good samaritan.
The storm in the distance looked pretty threatening. If I let that guy sit there, he’d have to bear the brunt of it. From the looks of him, he didn’t appear to be able to bear much at all. I pulled over to the side and rolled down the window.
“Where you looking to go?,” I asked him.
“Baltimore,” he replied. His voice was stronger than his sickly body had suggested, and that gave me pause. I looked him over again. Dirty jeans, baggy red t-shirt. No bag, no bulges in his pockets. I sighed.
“I can get you as far as Philly.” He nodded. “Hop in,” I told him, unlocking the door.
In he hopped.
“I’m Colin,” I said.
“Frank.”
We didn’t talk much for the first few miles, aside from me asking if he wanted some of the Fritos I had left from my lunch stop in Rhode Island. He took them and crunched away as I drove. He caught me studying him out of the corner of my eye a few times, but he didn’t say anything.
As the miles ticked away and rain started hitting the windshield, Frank fell asleep. The open bag of Fritos was on his lap. I wanted a couple, but didn’t want him to wake up thinking I was trying to grab his dick. I had absolutely no interest in his dick.
Frank snored like an orgasming Pratt and Whitney jet engine. In the confines of the car, since I had to close the windows once the rain had started, I noticed Frank had an unpleasant odor. Nothing overwhelming, but still obvious.
Over his snore, his stomach growled and burbled. “Gross,” I thought. Lightning flashed and wind buffeted the side of the car. The traffic ahead of us slowed to a crawl.
One of the annoying things about my car is the climate control only works properly when the car is moving. God knows why. The air conditioning we were enjoying up to that point cut out, and hot air started to blow out of the vents. The windshield began to fog up.
I cracked my window, hoping the outside air might clear the windshield. It did a bit, but visibility was terrible. The rain was heavy and my wipers weren’t doing a good job. All I could see was fog and the brake lights of the cars stopped in front of me. Frank’s stomach kept gurgling. I looked over. He was awake, staring straight ahead.
“You okay buddy,?” I asked. No response. He just stared at the fog-shrouded glass of the windshield. The smell I’d noticed before had intensified.
“Hey, Frank, what’s going on? You sick?”
Still nothing. Thick, humid air poured from the car’s vents despite the AC being set to max. Rain and small chunks of hail pelted the choked highway.
Frank retched. “Shit,” I said, and I frantically reached in the backseat for a bag or bucket or anything that might catch what I thought was about to come blasting out of my companion. My hand settled on one of the canvas shopping bags I used at Whole Foods. “God damn it,” I mumbled, as I placed my favorite shopping bag on Frank’s lap.
He moaned and turned to look at me, his eyes swimming back and forth with what I knew had to be intense nausea.
“Frank, please open the door and puke on the road or at least use the bag. I’m begging you.”
More silence punctuated by gurgling and retching. A boom of thunder caused us both to jump. For Frank, that was all it took. He didn’t open the door. And he didn’t aim for the bag.
A heavy wave of yellow vomit exploded out of his mouth and splashed against the windshield. I screamed. Another projectile torrent erupted from the man, dousing the ceiling, the dashboard, and the center console.
“Get out!,” I shrieked, the smell of the stomach contents invading my nose and threatening to force my own contribution to the mess. Frank sat back with his head down, pasty slime drooling from his mouth into the Fritos bag in his lap.
Cars behind me were leaning on their horns. The traffic in front of us had cleared. I poked at the hideousness on the console to turn on my emergency blinkers, then steered onto the median. On my right, I heard Frank choking. I got out of the car and stood in the rain, watching him. If you told me the following 30 seconds actually lasted 3 hours, I would’ve told you you were way off. It felt like a day.
Frank’s throat bulged as something was forced upward and into his mouth. I saw the something a second later. A colossal, writhing centipede as thick as my wrist began sliding out, its passage eased by the vile lubrication from minutes before. Inch after inch, foot after foot crawled out until it was free. It skittered under the passenger seat.
I’d already dialed the “9” in “911” when the solid matter entombed in his vomit began to move. Frank groaned and I distinctly heard him mutter, “not again.” As the rain soaked me, I watched as small centipedes crawled through the sludge all over the car, leaving trails as they went.
My dialing complete, I waited through seven rings before a dispatcher answered. As I told her about the medical emergency and tried to estimate where we were on the interstate, Frank abruptly opened the passenger-side door and stood on the side of the highway. He was gripping another massive centipede and pulling it out of his throat. I watched it bite his hand over and over until its two-foot length was exposed. Frank flung it into the dirt.
“Sorry about your car, man,” Frank called over the sound of rain and traffic. “I haven’t had an episode since I was a kid.”
I was speechless. I just looked at him as he walked down the side of the median, the torrential rain washing his clothes of the filth and bugs. And as centipedes crawled throughout my car and ropes of stomach contents dripped from its ceiling, Frank stuck out his thumb to flag down another potential ride to Baltimore.
Like all good scary stories, this one begins with a testicle self-examination. Or, as its colloquially known: jerking off. It was my last day in Guatemala and I was sitting in the hotel, waiting to go to the airport, and abusing myself to help pass the time. Things were going as well as could be expected. Until they weren’t. My left middle finger brushed against a lump on my right testicle. My erection wilted like a primrose at Chernobyl.
I did a cursory examination, hoping it might be an ingrown hair. But I knew it wasn’t. It didn’t have the itchy pain of an ingrown hair. No pain at all, actually. It had all the telltale signs of a growth I absolutely did not want anywhere on my body, especially not on my balls. Within 20 minutes, I’d cancelled my flight, phoned Renee to tell her the flight was delayed, and called an emergency clinic to tell them I was on my way.
Fast forward eight hours. Interesting fact about Guatemala: great medical care! I was examined, given an ultrasound, and told, to my enormous relief, the growth was benign. Just a cluster of fatty deposits. It’d go away on its own in a few weeks. I was on the next flight home. Continue reading “After 20 years, my wife finally allowed me to tell this story.”
