Warning: Mature Content

Can’t get gloves? Cundrums–I mean condoms, no lubricant, work well on fingers and can be held secure with clear packing tape around your palms. You may need help for that part.

Besides. What comments you’re going to hear from cashiers as you leave the store! People will even take your picture and shit.

I got interrupted one night when I was a teenager. Cop pulls up of course, with the spotlight right on us. “Park’s closed,” he says. He got a look at my date and decided to leave without watching us get our shit together and leave. I was so upset I stuffed myself back in, condom and all, zipped up, lit a Camel and drove the half hour to her house, dropped her off and drove the 25 minutes back to Pasadena. Where, once I got inside, I of course needed to piss. You see where this is going, right?

Yeah, it was stuck. Shriveled up and stuck like it was glued on with industrial epoxy.

And I gotta get it off. And I never hadda do this before. Oh, hair was stuck in there, too. That’s why I understand man-scaping now even though I won’t even think about it. There’s no sense trimming the weeds around a dead sapling, is there?

But I digress.

How was I gonna get this bloody thing off?

I know what you’re thinking. Just stick the damn thing under the faucet and run warm water from the top down, easy peasy.

I was only 18. How was I supposed to know! My father’s out in the den watching TV. I run the water, flush the toilet, and dig my thumbnail under the top and give it a yank. I had to choke in my scream. That shit hurt. I was free of the Trojan, but I was bleeding. And back then, we didn’t have Neosporin. Merthiolate tincture, rubbing alcohol. Peroxide. Bactine. Fuck it all, they each hurt so I tried to pick the lesser evil. I got that wrong, too. I screamed with my mouth closed and I swore I would never, ever put on another cundrum. I mean condom. Never again.

So maybe my ideas aren’t so great after all. I always try to help. Only to end up remembering I’m still an asshole.