Campfire stories, also known as urban legends, are meant to scare you. However, depending on your age, what scares you can vary greatly. Kids are afraid of the monsters in their closet. For teenagers I imagine it would be the man with a hook for a hand, or no bars on their cell phone. For mothers, there is the obvious fear of something horrible happening to our offspring or our partners.
But one story is so prevalent, and so scary, every mother has heard one. A friend of a friend has had it happen to them.
The failed vasectomy.
Yes. Even though their husband had a vasectomy, she ended up pregnant. With twins. Or was 42.
I heard one from my best friend. Then my sister mentioned to me what she heard on Good Morning America (prefaced with the “I don’t mean to scare you, but….” that goes like this:
There comes a time in a woman’s life, unless you are a Duggar, that you say “my family is complete.” I have all I can reasonably handle, if not more than that. Thanks to the miracle of modern medicine, you can rest assured that you have ended your trips down the diaper aisle. You no longer have to worry about any more blessings.
Then…. dun, dun, DUNNNN…………
You hear about about another woman who thought she was safe. Her nest was full, and she was pleased. And then her husband’s vasectomy magically reversed itself. She was peeing on a stick and breathing into a paper bag.
Just last month my husband mocked me when I said “thank goodness! I was a little late and was getting scared.”
“But honey, I had a vasectomy!” Then he gets that look, a suspicious one, that says maybe he really needs to be worrying about the UPS guy.
I looked at my poor, naive husband and told him “those tubes they cut? Sometimes they grow back! They want to work.”
He laughs and says proudly, as a man of three gorgeous sons would, “I do have good genes! They want to be passed on!” Plus I suppose he realized that a woman who shaves her legs as seldom as I do is not likely to be stepping out on him. What with her mismatched boobs and all.
Yes, there are stories out there that will make your hair curl and your blood run cold. But I suspect the failed vasectomy tales are the ones that make a woman lose sleep at night, right after she gets up for a 3 AM feeding or a 4 AM assist to help a preschooler use the potty.
Are they true? Or just something we torment ourselves with? Hard to say, now isn’t it? Because just last night, this guy escaped from the lunatic asylum. He had a hook for hand and a recent vasectomy……
