Sunday 28 September 2008

Sainsbury's car washes suck, part two.

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It is unfair not to explain.

I always understood that supermarket car washes only took "normal" cars, that is to say 5 door saloons and the like.

Anything high, or anything with odd shapes I had always thought were a no-no, but they have a large list of things to avoid.

I looked at the list and took the trouble to remove my rear parking mirror (which is part of the car and is factory fitted), since they stated not to have one, just to be on the safe side.

And it ate my car.

The first spray went okay, then the hard metal dryer bit came across, spraying.
It went up the front in front of the mirrors and, as soon as it cleared the top of my right mirror, which is slightly lower than the left one, it came straight for the windscreen.

It smashed straight through the mirror and then lifted up, but had got inside the frame and so it lifted the front of the car off the ground repeatedly.

I sounded my horn as soon as it touched, but it took the woman a good couple of minutes to stop it.

When it hit the mirror I was a bit concerned, but then it just exploded the whole mirror unit and I was really genuinely scared that it was coming through the window.

When the car started lifting up and down I was not so bad, but everyone else was understandably shocked, although I was becoming worried about what it would do next - with the sensor failing and knowing it could pick the front of the car up, I was worried it might come down on the back and crush the kids.

It took far too long to stop it - I sounded my horn and after a while a customer came over and stopped the machine, but to be honest that does not seem good enough - if a window had broken and water was being sprayed at a kid in a child seat they could easily drown in that time, not to mention being crushed or hot wax through a sun roof (if someone was daft enough to open their sun roof!).

I was going to drive to Milton Keynes tomorrow, but now I cannot as I cannot really go up the motorway with no mirror, a smashed frame hanging off the side and, hopefully not, but possibly, a bent superstructure, where the body rises beside the windscreen and the door hinges attach.

[UPDATE: David tells me it is called the 'A Post'.]

I guess it will have to be a hire car.

Sainsbury's car washes can eat your car.

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Try something new today, that is what Sainsbury's says.

Well it tried something new today, it tried eating a bloody Delica with one of its car washes.

I am far from pleased.

Saturday 27 September 2008

It's a date!

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Well, I went to see the doctor last night for a bit of a pre-op chat. I discussed things with a friend who is already a Jaffa and he described things from his perspective and I felt very comfortable with things.

Jim came along, as my relevant significant other, to give her blessing and to make sure I did not bottle it. After all, as she keeps reminding me, we agreed that this was for the best.

I was allowed in early, but all the receptionists know that Dr Watson's late night Thursday surgery is the vasectomy surgery and there was an unnecessarily high level of mirth emitting from the denizens of the reception. I owe the surgery £19.99 for a letter from a few months ago, so I made another attempt to pay it, but was, as always, sent away with the mocking laughter of the receptionist's disgust. If I want to pay then I shall have to find the original invoice. I think that I shall probably simply not bother for now.

Dr Watson is considerably slighter than most doctors. He seems a little shocked that Jim is accompanying me and passes comment, before offering me a chair next to his desk and insisting that Jim occupies a chair in the corner, as far from his desk as is feasible.

The comfort which discussing a vasectomy with the doctor without Jim's input is short lived as a laminated diagram of male genitalia is produced and placed before me. Now, I have long since understood that the severing of the vas deferens before they reach the seminal vesicles is the basis of a vasectomy, but it is a very different matter when I am sitting looking at a picture of a particularly small specimen with hugely oversized black sperm swimming towards the break.

Dr Watson tells me that he will have done 700 vasectomies by the time he has finished mine and I cannot help but wonder what kind of dreams a man who has maimed fourteen hundred testicles might have.

We have a bit of a vasectomy chat and discuss the issues which surround the procedure, which I shall go into at a later date. I mention my fear that, should Jim be brutally slaughtered by a jaguar which has swum the Atlantic, I may want more children by another lady in the future. Dr W gives this serious consideration and has a good response, but I can tell that the big cat reference was not overly appreciated, so I avoid any comments about the Leopard which I had envisioned coming over on the Chunnel to finish the job.

Well, it turns out that the hole which Dr Watson will be making in my scrotum is only 1mm by 3mm, which doesn't sound so bad. Apparently it will stretch to about a 3mm diameter circle during the procedure, but will shrink back almost immediately without any stitch or suture. I did enquire about inserting a transdermal implant at this stage but, whilst he thought the idea had merit, Dr W tells me that what I get up to in the comfort of my own home after he is finished is up to me.

It is explained to me that I have to continue using contraception for 16 weeks after the op, which includes 2 sperm counts. In China apparently the norm is to merely wait for 24 ejaculations, which I describe as 'a good afternoon's work', but which the good doctor tells me is an afternoon's work which will be both highly uncomfortable and unlikely to leave me in any fit state to take advantage of my haste. Basically it is 16 weeks for me.

"Right then, let's have a look at them then."
"Damn! I thought that this appointment was just for a chat. I am not sure how fresh I am, I have cycled here from work, you see."
"That's not a problem, I cycled to work today as well."
"Yes, but I am not going to be touching your genitals."
"Not on this occasion, no."

I am going to like this doctor.

Why is it that I am placed behind a screen to lower my trousers and pants? I go behind, drop me kecks and hop up on the couch, then Dr W comes around and pokes my nads for a few minutes before retiring to allow me to dress. What is the privacy for? I hardly gain from it and it all seems a little unnecessarily coy to me.

The doctor manipulates my testicles until the vas deferens comes up to the surface and shows me it through the skin. He explains how the scrotum is not an empty sack, but is made up of many layers and is, essentially, full. As he releases this vas deferens and hunts to bring the next one to the surface in the same spot, I comment on how strange it is that in can change shape and size so dramatically if it is full, but I am also acutely aware that, for whatever reasons of its own, my penis has shrunk to the size of a whelk. This is not the time to let me down with your irrational fear, little soldier. I want to get some decent shots of this and I am not going to want to keep them if I appear in them as a hairy twelve year old.

I broach the subject of having a photographer and video at the operation and he has no problems at all. He offers to bring a mirror too and suggests that it will make things less boring and that he would normally advise that I bring a good book. Jim is not so keen and becomes convinced (and still is) that she will pass out when he begins to burn into my testicles. The only concern which the doctor expresses is that if I try and watch directly by sitting up, I may be in his way and, if Jim zooms in too much, he won't look terribly photogenic.

"Anyway, that's no problem at all, I sometimes have trouble with the 18 stone truckers, getting the vas deferens to the surface, but it is no problem at all with a slim chap like yourself."

SLIM!

At work and home alike, I am routinely ridiculed for my obesity. Dr Watson, whilst not my regular doctor, is GP to a number of my friends and is well know for being particularly pernickety about weight. And he said that I was slim. In front of a witness. Jim laughs and I protest, fishing slightly. "I am fifteen and a half stone and I am hardly thin!". I bare and wobble my stomach at this.

The compliment I am after is duly delivered: "At your age there will be some loose flesh, but you are definitely not overweight. I am very happy with your weight, we have no problems there."

HAH! Stick that in your pipe and smoke it, David 'fat face' Tapp.

Anyway, from here I return to the desk, although Jim has now occupied the chair closest to the desk, presumably to make it clear who makes our decisions. She is wearing trousers, whilst I am only wearing shorts, which is coincidental, but appropriate.

I pick up the diagrams from the desk and notice that there is a need to shave. "You are shitting me!". But apparently he is not. Being bearded, I shall actually have to purchase a bloody razor for the job and, frankly I do not relish this at all. Having a cock like a dolphin is not my idea of fun at all. I have had a quick look for my cut-throat to see how I can manage with that, but I appear to have lost it.

One of the things about having children is that I do tend to put things in safe places, out of reach. Sadly I also am slowly losing my mind and cannot remember where I put anything at all. I digress.

Anyway, I explain that, now that Jim has let me down three times already, I am ready to give up my fertility. He asks if I am sure and I nod to Jim and say "Absolutely, she told me just this morning". Immediately catching on the the fact that I have 3 daughters he offers some condolence and is shocked to learn that even Bun, the cat, is female. What am I letting myself in for here? Is my family name to be severed as cleanly as my tubes by this vasectomy?

He has some selected questions to be sure whether I am being bullied into this and quickly determines that I am. We have a few talks about effectiveness and procedure and I wince a few more times at the fact that he is going to burn a hole through my sack and I am released with a date 3 weeks from now.

I shall look through my disclaimer forms and try not to panic about things such as this, this, this and so on. Also, a man burning a hole in my 'nads. Let us not forget that bit.

*shudder*

Thursday 25 September 2008

Vasectomy counselling

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Well, when I initially visited the doctor about my vasectomy I also had torn the cartilage in my knee. My visits to the quack normally works like this, I save up 3 or 4 issues until I get something serious enough that I cannot wait any more and then go bustling with ailments to present for her delight.

I always suspected that this makes me somewhat unpopular with the Doctor, but I recently changed practises and my old GP, Laura, was evidently sad to see me go, so I assume that it is only the receptionists who become irate. Where do such obnoxious women come from anyway? Is there a doctors and dentist receptionist nest somewhere, churning out mentally retarded clones, with only the very worst being selected to be a school secretary?

I digress.

Anyway, the severity of my knee injury (I am awaiting a call from my surgeon as we speak) distracted somewhat from the old vasectomy nad-hacking and the chat I had with the locum at the time was fairly minimal. Today I have to have a proper talking to.

The thing is, I rather fancy that I DO want to keep my old chap in full working order. I know it sounds harsh, but the reason that we want no more children is a) we have enough, but more importantly b) that Jim is a bit knackered after squeezing three out and frankly does not think that she is physically up to a rematch. Whether she is with me or anyone else, Jim just does not want to go through another p
pregnancy.

On the flip side if, for the sake of argument, Jim dies, perhaps after being mauled to death by a jaguar which has swum across the Atlantic or a leopard which has walked across from Africa and stowed away on the Chunnel (and I hope it's the jaguar because I prefer spots in my rings), I might find me another special lady.

Not straight away, you understand. I'd leave a reasonable period of 4 or 5 days before moving a new woman into the house.

Anyway, what if this new lady wants sprogs? It seems hardly fair to deny her simply because Jim doesn't feel up to the task. Bloody slacker!

Anyway, for whatever reason, I am told that we have decided that, since sterilisation is so much more invasive than a vasectomy, it is Manley who needs to have a sodding great blade thrust into his genitalia and, if that is what we have decided, who am I to argue?

Anyway, tonight is round two of the vasectomy quest. I'm off to see Dr Watson to discuss the removal of my fertility. wish me luck.