Confessions of a Trophy Husband: Jools and Jim (Pete Townsend

"I think it moved" ~ George Costanza, in "The Note" (Seinfeld)

"Can you please move your penis for me?"

That's what she said. Badum-dum! Only that is really what she said.

Can I move my penis? Well, that's something I'm not asked everyday. Actually, I can confidently say I've never been asked this in my lifetime.

Lisa, the female thirty-something lab technician (excuse me, I mean ultrasound technologist) asked with the casualness of somebody asking to move a car.

Oh, I'm sorry, I didn't know where to put it. You know, that silly thing is always getting in the way. I have the darnedest time finding a parking place for it, and it barely fits in the garage. Ha, well enough about me, give me a second to find my keys.

I moved it up the driveway and went back to reading my book. Well, I should say I went back to scanning the text on the page. Reading requires word recognition and comprehension. There was no recognition or comprehension going on.

I found it difficult to concentrate on a book while lying on my back, naked from the waist down (my underwear pulled down around my knees), with a young lady rubbing warm lubricant on my scrotum (with a wand-like instrument called a "transducer"). I had other concerns and it wasn't whether or not my epididymis was infected or inflamed.

My attention was focused just north of my testicular ultrasound, on my recently adjusted . . . Jimmy Tiddlywinker. I was using every available neuron in my brain to make certain there was no action from Jackson; that Mr. Wrinkles didn't become Mr. Happy (or even a little dandy). Any movement, although not uncommon (so I have read) and perfectly normal, would be positively mortifying.

My brain was exchanging signals up and down the spinal cord with The Penis (the organ Formerly Known as Jimmy Tiddlywinker). The official orders from the brain were to 1.) play dead, 2.) don't think for yourself, and 3.) under no circumstances pass "go." In the case of an erectile emergency -- my hindbrain had the Bea Arthur v. Margaret Thatcher Mud Wrestling mental imagery queued and ready to play.

Five minutes into the procedure I was hiding behind my book, staring at a page that might as well have been blank. Lisa the ultrasound technologist silently did her thing. I peeked from behind my book to see her occasionally glancing between my legs (I believe she was getting her ball bearings, according to Fletch "It's all ball bearings nowadays") but spending most of her time looking at a video monitor while moving the booster transducer back and forth on my . . . bollocks. She paused momentarily at various spots and hit a key on the keyboard with her free hand.

There was no pillow talk. The voice of Ray Davies of The Kinks and the sound of her keystrokes is all I heard. Ray Davies was in my head repeatedly singing the same line from the 1981 song "Destroyer":

Stop! Hold on. Stay in control. [click]

Despite being jostled from time to time and feeling what I swear was a cool breeze, all remained quiet on the the Southern Front. However, I realized I hadn't turned the page of my book since I opened it. A minor detail I failed to take into account when fake reading. (Even more alarming when you take into consideration I was fake speed reading.) Damn! Lisa the ultrasound technologist either knew I was faking or must think I am a really slow reader. But then again, she probably hadn't noticed. Let's face it, she really didn't care about me as a reader or anything having to do with my brain. To her, I was just a faceless . . . scrotum. She wanted me for my testes.

A couple of well timed page turns later, I was finally beginning to relax. I was feeling confident (or dare I say cocky?) enough that I thought I could stop pretending, and actually read from my book. The book, The Wild Trees by Richard Preston, was about the giant redwood trees of the Pacific Northwest. I began reading the book just that morning and found myself on page twenty.

I began reading:

"In its first twenty years of life, a coast redwood can grow from a seed into a tree that's fifty feet tall. In its next thousand years, it grows faster, adding mass at an accelerating rate."

A seed? Grows faster? Adding mass? Hmm, maybe reading a book about trees is not a good idea at this time. I continued . . .

"A redwood can go from a seed to a big tree in about six hundred years. Around age eight hundred, which is the end of its youth, it may reach its maximum height -- its thirty-something-story height."

Okay, not good.

Stop! Hold on. Stay in control.

I ain't no redwood but I don't need six hundred years to get "big." My tree measures time in milliseconds. Enough, no more reading. I went back to fake speed reading.

A few page turns later Lisa the ultrasound technologist signaled the end of the procedure with a simple, "All done." My inclination was to say "thank you," and offer her ride home. But then thought better of it.

I did thank her moments later when before leaving she gave me a towel and said, "Use that to clean yourself up." Proof that inside she did care about me and I wasn't just another Bilbo Baggins. Although I bet she said that to all the guys.

I'll never forget her parting words, she said, "Someone will be coming to get you." No, no, no, that wasn't it. She said, "Someone will be here soon . . ." No, no, that wasn't it either. Oh, damn, I don't remember exactly what she said, something to the effect that someone would be taking me back to the Emergency Room. And just like that, Lisa the ultrasound technologist walked out the door and out of my life.

I felt a sense of relief as well as great pride. Relieved because . . . do I really need to rehash this movement thing? I think not. Proud that I achieved the erectile dysfunction I worked so long and hard on (hey, did I just make a pun?). It just shows that when you set your mind and penis to something, anything is possible. For what seemed like an eternity (maybe 15 minutes), he didn't move. He just laid there like a slug. (After all, "it was his only defense.") I have never been prouder.

I entered the Emergency Room that Saturday morning at about 9:00 AM having endured terrible stomach pains the night before. Two and half hours later I sat relaxed, waiting to be rolled back to Emergency Room #12. My stomach still bothered me but my scrotum felt great. I did crave a cigarette -- and I don't even smoke.

A short time later a guy dressed in hospital scrubs stuck his head in the room and said, "Someone will be coming soon."

That's what she said. Badum-dum! No really, that's it! That is what she said.

"The penis must be said to have its own mind." ~ Leonardo da Vinci

"Think unsexy thoughts, think unsexy thoughts . . . " ~ Homer Simpson, in "The Last Temptation of Homer" (The Simpsons)