When it comes to certain areas of personal hygiene, I don't beat around the bush:
I trim it.
Yeah, that's right. I keep the weeds whacked; I clear the junkyard every once in awhile; and though I'm not convinced it's gonna look any taller when I'm done, I cut the grass around the mailbox. And no, I don't do it for the special lady in my life (Michelle Branch); I do it for the extra special, extremely manly man in my life (me).
Now, because my capacity for remembering things is akin to, say, that of a grapefruit, I have no recollection of "getting pubes" or of when, once I got them, I decided it would be in my best interests to "un-get" them. All I have is a vague impression of looking down at my enormous bush one day and deciding that my proverbial short-n-curly's were way too long (think Hassidic Jew Sideburns).
Sometime after this revelation, a dangerous combination of "being bored" and "finding old gardening shears" ended up with me standing in the bathtub, stark naked, doing a little gardening of my own. The memory is foggy, but, after a few snips here and a few snips there, I can recall staring in absolute amazement at some object that, in hindsight, must have been 'my penis'.
Months later, during a brotherly chat with my brother, it was brought to my attention that using scissors near your package is a bad idea. My hazy memory will never forget the look of abject horror on his face when I let it drop that my maintenance ritual included the use of old scissors "that don't even meet at the end" (thus, as it was explained to me, greatly increasing the chance of contact with a pair of extremely vulnerable bags of skin). Telling my brother that I always made a conscious effort to walk, not run, when carrying the scissors from the kitchen drawer to the bathroom did nothing to allay his concern. He just looked at me like I was a complete idiot and said:
"Clippers, Dude. Clippers."
Within a week, I was again standing naked in the bathtub, this time armed with the cheapest pair of clippers money can buy. I'm not going to lie to you: I was nervous. So nervous, in fact, that I started with a #6 clip (just to be safe). By the time I worked my way down to the #1 clip, I was an old pro, who, incidentally, now looked very young.
Before I go any further (and I'm fully aware that I've already gone too far) I just want to say that shaving your testicles is totally nuts. If looking like a 12-year-old boy is your bag, then fine. But remember: If there's no grass on the field, you can't play ball.
Anyway, trimming your pubes is not something you can do once and then never do again; maintenance becomes essential. Fortunately for me, I became rather adept at taking care of my business. My system (much like my nether-region) was nice and smooth, ensuring that my area was quickly and carefully kept clean.
That is, until 'The Accident'...
[Warning! Extremely Graphic Content Follows. How graphic? So graphic...that the words "rusty clippers" and "scrotum sack" will appear in the same sentence as the word "lacerated." If you are a man, or some other gender, you may want to skip this one.]
I lacerated my scrotum sack with a pair of rusty clippers!
I just wanted to get that out of the way...the rest of the story begins now:
I'm a lazy person by nature, so it was only a matter of time before I started cutting corners when it came to cutting my bush. Somewhere along the way, realizing that (a) no one but me ever saw my crotch, and (b) it would increase the amount of time between grooming sessions, I stopped using a numbered clip. Somewhere else along the way, I ran out of lube (for the clippers), but instead of purchasing another tube, I figured it'd be easier to just stop taking care of the clippers altogether.
Last Saturday night, as a result of all this carelessness, I stepped into the bathtub, naked and vulnerable (not to mention a little excited), and turned on an unguarded pair of neglected clippers; a pair of clippers whose once well-oiled blades used to rub effortlessly against one another to produce a soothing buzz; a pair of clippers whose 'stainless steel' teeth were now covered in rust, struggling profusely to slide against each other, and screaming like a chainsaw.
Undeterred, I began to tackle the bush. Using a deft hand, I swiftly cleared the pubic triangle and surrounding areas of unsightly hair. Impressed with the thorough job I'd done in such a short amount of time, I began lifting and looking, making sure I hadn't miss a spot.
And then I saw it.
A lone straggler, clinging innocently enough to the underside of my testicles. It's hard to say what exactly was going through my mind when I made my next move, but it's safe to say that I suffered my most regrettable lapse of judgment to date: Utilizing a motion better suited to removing a spot of dirt with a wet napkin, I casually dabbed the pube with my clippers.
The pain was both immediate and intense.
Clutching my jewels with one hand and holding the clippers in the other, I stood motionless, clearly in shock, and thought to myself: Oh my God...this is bad...this is so bad... When I could finally speak out loud, I uttered words I had only heard once before in my entire life, when a grade school kid had leapt off the back of some bleachers and landed on a bush--and the business end of a sprinkler head.
"I think I tore my sack!"
Still firmly clutching my balls with one hand, and fully convinced that I had just given myself an unwanted vasectomy, I began to freak out. When I finally calmed down, I realized that at some point I was going to have to survey the damage. Upon realizing this, I began to freak out again.
Ten minutes later, having mustered up the courage to inspect my injured man-parts, I removed my hand to reveal a single dot of blood. But my relief upon discovering that I had not, technically, torn my sack--just merely punctured it--faded quickly when another spot of blood appeared. Then another. And another, until an entire dotted line of blood appeared where the metal teeth had snagged my wrinkly flesh.
I shall spare you the rest of this story, mostly because I was fading in and out of consciousness and can't remember what happened, but I do know that it involved a fair amount of blood and an awful lot of blotting, and yes, more dabbing.
When I finally emerged from the bathroom, I was greeted by a female housemate who--although she had been listening to my agony throughout the ordeal--had absolutely no sympathy for me. In fact, she thought the whole thing was hilarious.
"Listen," I wailed, "you have no idea what it's like to bleed from your genitals!"
Needless to say, shortly after realizing what I had just said, I thought the whole thing was hilarious too...