The Nutcracker... NOT Sweet

For those of you readers who are not guys (and I now have reason to believe that there might be up to three of you), let me tell you a secret about us. About the worst thing that can happen to us is a hard blow in the... um... family jewels. We NEVER forget any of them. And if you ask any guy, he will have one or more stories about it happening to him. Strangely, we seem to wear these experiences like badges of honour. I can't explain why; that's just the way it is.

However, not many of us are lucky enough to capture the exact moment of that special 'first contact' in a photograph. But my 13-year-old son is. Here is the instant beforehand, captured forever:


Don't let the picture trick you: he is not going straight down into the water. On the contrary, he is attempting a mock cartwheel entry. He is rotating very fast. Sadly, his speed of rotation leads him to a point of entry that causes him some extreme testicular distress.

Splash.

He comes out of the pool and he approaches me. It's hard to describe, but he's... kind of... vibrating. At first the words don't come easily, but he makes it clear what's happened: "It... feels... like... they've... been... ripped... off." He sits next to me, and slumps over into my lap, teenage coolness out the window. I pat his back and gently tell him that he's not really going to die, that this is just nature's way of teaching him to vigorously protect himself there for his whole life.

Within 15 or 20 minutes, he's back in the pool. Later in the evening we laugh about the whole thing.

Oh, yes, we find all these stories hilariously funny too. Don't ask me to explain that one either.