Plumbing

Plumber's Helper
(a Dramatization)

I got my plumbing examined. The word, plumbing, derives from the Latin, plumbum or "lead" as in heavy metal, or "get the lead out." No dignity exists in a urologist's examination room.

The doctor was kind and gentle, but somehow with my pants down, my drawers dropped (yes, I did remember to wear my tighty-whities this time) and me holding my shirttails, I felt undignified as he sat before me and examined my penis and scrotum. I'm usually quite capable of sustaining conversations on almost nearly any subject, but I had an exceedingly difficult time at that moment telling the doctor about my penis's oral history. My plumbing had let me down.

Then he asked me to turn around, set my elbows on the table - well those men among you of a certain age know what happened next. He performed that exam in an efficient, experienced (and I might say, pleasurable) manner that bespoke of thousands of others who had rested their elbows in exactly the same place on that exam table. Maybe that's a (small) reward for wayward plumbing, and a visit to the urologist.