Is THAT Why They Call Them 'Huevos'?

Greetings WYMOP readers!

I'm a little closer to on time this week -- I mean, it's Sunday, so technically I made it on the weekend, right?

Anyway, here's the story...

~ ~ * * ~ ~

I dove into the water.

It was the only way to do it. The high day had been in the mid 90’s, and though by the time I had gotten out of work and gotten us to the pond it was far past the heat of the day, the water temperature was still nowhere near that of the air. When I’d stepped into the water my testicles had started to contract, indicating their complete willingness to shrink to the size of raisins and climb right up into my abdominal cavity should I continue in my foolish quest to dip them into the frigid pool. My actual intent was to plunge my whole body into the water, but testicles are selfish things, and they were interested in nothing more than their own self-preservation —  even to the point where I swear they took each-other hostage, with a whole “If you ever want to see lefty/righty alive, you’ll step right back out on shore, Bucko!”

I don’t deal with terrorists. I dove into the water.

My testicles silenced (and for the next five seconds or so, until my body adjusted to the water temperature, furious with me), I turned back to the real challenge: convincing Handsome to just dive in as well.

“Come on, buddy, the water’s fine!”

I sounded convincing. I sounded like I was telling the truth. Hell, I was telling the truth. Once my whole body was in it the water was quite comfortable, though much, much cooler than the still 90* air. Back at shore, Handsome stood in ankle-deep water and hugged the massive army of goose-pimples that had, until about a minute ago, been his skin.

“It’s cold!”

“It’s only colder than the air,” I said. “Once you get in it’s fine. I’m telling you, just dive in.”

He slunk forward, creeping slowly toward me, the water rising past his shins almost to his knees. He stopped again, hugging himself tighter.

Why is it that when we step into chilly water like this, when our feet are the body parts actually feeling the cold, we hug our chests? There was Handsome, knee-deep in water, everything above his knees still baking on the 90* day, and he was hugging his torso protectively, like someone was trying to give him a purple nurple. It looked ridiculous to me as I watched him, but when I thought back it occurred to me that I had done the same thing until I’d taken the plunge. Why is that?

Hmm... food for future thought.

Anyway, I knew why he’d stopped there, with the water dancing about just below his patellas: his testicles had just taken each-other hostage.

Now, every man reading this knows exactly what I’m talking about, but I might have to explain it for the ladies.

C'mon! How the hell has no one made
THIS connection before?

Picture Humpty-Dumpty. That’s right, the egg from the nursery rhyme with the bad luck and even worse insurance coverage, but this is before all that, when he’s healthy as a horse and half as smart. Big round egg with little spindly arms and legs, just about as non-threatening as you can get. He’s wearing a bow-tie, for Christ’s sake!

Now give him a twin brother. Got it? Can you see them, the pair of them, standing there side-by-side? All self-important but fragile and fairly ridiculous-looking? Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumpty?

Okay, now picture them looking down at the approaching water and their huge egg-faces suddenly register fear. The fear turns to anger as they look up at their bearer (in this case, Handsome, though a minute earlier it had been me) and they whip a pair of little knives out of their pockets. They start wielding the knives in a theatrical manner, circling and dancing around each-other while the music from the Jets vs Sharks scene in “West Side Story” plays in the background. Over the music they each shout threats up at their bearer amounting to “I get wet and I’ll cut him, I swear to God I will!”

You got all that? Good. Now picture it all happening down the front of someone’s pants.

Is it any wonder guys stop and stand there, terrified to take another step into the water even though they know it’s not really that cold? It’s a case of cartoono-testicular confusion, plain and simple, and I was seeing my boy in the throes of it. It about tore me up.

I had to help.

I moved toward shore, keeping low so that only my head was sticking out of the water. I made my way into water so shallow I was sitting on the bottom and had to crouch my torso a bit to keep my shoulders submerged.

“C’mere,” I said. “It’s not so bad right here.”

Handsome crept closer, cringing, yelping at every wave and eddy that pushed the water to new heights up the front of his legs. Just as he reached me the bottom hem of his swimsuit got wet, wicking action drawing cool moisture still higher on his body, and he hissed a quick intake of breath. I knew Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumpty had just stepped it up, maybe going so far as to have knives pressed to each-other’s throats down there, snarling with rage and demanding to be taken seriously, demanding not to be pushed. But my boy trusted me, trusted my judgement, so here he was standing right in front of me.

Suddenly he relaxed slightly, looking at me with a puzzled expression.

“You’re right,” he said. “It’s warmer here.”

He looked down at the water between us.

“Why is it warmer here?”

I simply sat and smiled at him. His eyes widened.

“Oh, that’s gross!”

He turned about and started a slow-motion sprint for shore, struggling to force his legs to move through the thigh-deep water with some sort of speed.  I counted two heaving, gallumphing strides …

… and that’s when I tripped him.

Three seconds later I was swim-splashing-running for deeper water, an enraged ten-year-old in hot pursuit, murder in his eyes. I waited until he had actually swum a few strokes because it had gotten too deep for him to run through before I asked him:

“So, how’s that water? Still too cold?”

That stopped him, and he thought about it. I could tell he was listening for that tell-tale music, but there was nothing; the knife-wielding dancing boys in his shorts were happily swimming around, best buddies again, talking about how silly they’d been and how that whole knife-fight thing would never happen again.

Until the next time.

“Nope,” he said. “I’m good.”

That still didn’t stop him from attacking me with intent to dunk.

~ ~ * * ~ ~

That's it for this week, talk to you later!

....and this week's Bonus Video: West Side Story!

...I mean Scrubs!

... I mean... oh, Hell, I dunno what I mean...