Outer Life: Snip Snip

"Go forth and multiply," we were told, and we did.

And it was good.

"No more procreating," we resolved, after two.

And it was good.

"I'm through with the pill," she said, tossing me a Trojan.

And it was bad.

Thus I contemplate the vasectomy. No deference to my vas deferens. No more lifelines. Just snip snip and it's goodbye fertility, hello sterility. Ejaculating without propagating. Just shooting blanks. Millions left behind. Never sharing my selfish genes with anyone ever again.

And for some reason I'm not sure I want to go through with it.

It's not that I'm squeamish when thinking of the procedure, or afraid I'll be less of a man (if anything, I'll be even fuller of the lusty juices of life after blocking their escape route), or concerned it will adversely affect my plumbing or hydraulic systems.

A friend in my situation won't get a vasectomy. Although he's very happily married, he's concerned that if by chance his marriage fails, or if God forbid he becomes a widower, most young hotties, envisioning a childless future with him, will shun him. His young hot wife, sitting next to him as he tells us this, nods her head: "I wouldn't have married him if children weren't in the picture." I hadn't thought of that, I think, but now having thought about it, I'm thinking it's not the reason I'm hesitating, although maybe it should be. I'll need to think on it.

No, there's something deep inside me that resists permanent self-inflicted alterations to my body, such as tattoos, piercings, cosmetic surgery, Lasik eye surgery and dental procedures requiring the replacement or capping of teeth. I'm an alternative guy, in the sense that I like to keep as many options open as possible. I never want to reach the point of no return. But once I hear the snip snip, there's no return. Although there's a chance it might be reversible, I'll have to assume my seed-spreading days are over for good. And when I hear myself saying "for good" like that, it's for bad.

And there's something not so deep inside me that's worried that this is it, the first tangible manifestation that my days of swimming in the gene pool are over, that I've checked out of the whole miracle-of-life thing, that I'll never again stir the primordial soup, that I'm old and spent, that life will now pass me by, that my job here is through.

A woman's biological clocks ticks and ticks as it slows down and, at an imperceptible moment, ticks no more. My clock, on the other hand, is due for a very perceptible smashing. Is it any wonder I hesitate?

And then I remember the Trojans. Snip snip, here I come.