Saturday, July 14, 2012

Trojan Man

After a few weeks of thinking and talking it over, Nick and I decided that we are finished having children. For various reasons, we are happy with our little family of five. We've also decided to make the decision permanent, and final: Nick is going for The Big Snip. A vasectomy just makes sense- neither of us wants a surprise baby in a few years (or worse, when we're 40 and looking forward to the kids that we already have moving out and paying for their own food.) There is a bit of a waiting period for this procedure, so we are being extra careful.

Last night we enjoyed a date night. Nick's parents watched the kids while we went out for supper and hung out on a patio drinking and people watching. It was extremely warm out, but the patio was well shaded and the drinks were cold- the musical notes of ice cubes clinking in their glasses floated out beyond the sidewalk. At the embarrassingly early hour of 9:30 we were both ready to go home and go to bed. We were driving out of the city when Nick asked me to pull into Shoppers Drug Mart to get condoms. I pulled into the parking lot, turned off the van, and waited. Nick looked at me and said sheepishly, "aren't you coming in with me?!" I rolled my eyes and went in. Once inside I found the "planned parenting" aisle and grabbed a couple boxes, handing them to Nick to pay for. We walked up to the cash and was greeted by an extensive line-up filled with elderly grandparents, young attractive teenage girls, parents with their young children, and a whole bus load of Catholic nuns- or so it seemed to my husband who said, "Nope- let's keep shopping." We went up and down aisles killing time and looking for purchases that he could hide the condoms behind (we settled on two state of the art travel coffee mugs and a travel cup for my iced lattes.) We couldn't waste anymore time- they were closing the store- so we headed back to the cash. As soon as we turned the corner to get to the line-up at the registers, we run right into my sister's husband. Nick stashed the condoms behind his back and I burst out laughing, both at his embarrassment and the ridiculousness of our luck. "What are you doing here?!" Nick asked my brother-in-law. "Same thing as you," he replied, pulling out the condoms he was hiding under his arm. There was a tiny moment of *awkward* before we all busted a gut laughing. Between us we have five kids, and buying contraception is still embarrassing; it is a gleaming beacon, a neon sign that screams, "I AM GOING TO HAVE SEX. PLEASE TELL MY PARENTS AND SILENTLY JUDGE ME!" We said good night to Chris and put our purchases on the counter. To Nick's eternal credit, he did not blush when the pretty young girl scanned his condoms that he cleverly hid behind coffee mugs. "That will be $75.43 please," she said. "75 dollars!" Nick exclaimed. "Well, I suppose it's still way cheaper than having another baby," he said, smirking (and blushing fiercely) as he forked over the cash.

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