As we watched the tv-edited version of the movie “Bring It On” (it plays on cable quite a bit, I’ve come to realize), my wife, who has been laid up with a hurt back (she’ll be fine, I sprayed a little Windex on the area) over the last week (and who I have been waiting on hand and foot for the last week, husband-of-the-year award pending) began telling me about a program she watched yesterday through a Vicodin-induced haze, while I was at a gig.

“It was a show about dirty jobs in which…” she started.

“Was it the show ‘Dirty Jobs’?” I inquired.

“Well, no. Maybe? I don’t know. Perhaps. Anyway, on this show, it had these people, farmers I think, and they would squeeze the testicles of these animals and out would pop these white things…”

At this point I’m already making horrified faces at her. She continues on.

“…these white things would pop out, and, even though they had a tool for the purpose, the farmers would bite these white things, which I think were the testicles themselves, and pull them off with their teeth.” She still had a puzzled look on her face, as if this were a distant memory she was trying to grasp, but it’s edges were gossamer threads on the wind of flittering…

Oh, nevermind. I’m not affixing such a lovingly crafted metaphor to a post on testicles. It’s insulting to the English language, and I’m just not going to do it.

“Wait, they would squeeze the testicles of small animals and… did they cut open the, err, ‘pouch’?” I asked.

“I don’t know.”

She had my full attention at this point, and I’d muted the television, leaving Kirsten Dunst to flip around and whatnot in a silent world. I also stopped eating my yogurt, which suddenly looked unappetizing.

“What kind of animals were these? Sheep? I mean, I’ve heard of that, somewhere, I think, farmers biting off sheep’s testicles. I pity their wives…”

“I don’t think they were sheep though, they were like small… bears. Yes, they were bear-like creatures. But small.”

“What-what now? Bears? Small bears? Like Tasmanian devils?” I suddenly had a vision of Bugs Bunny biting the testicles off of that whirling Tasmanian devil from the cartoons. Suddenly those large front teeth looked a little threatening.

“Yes, bear-like. But this was in the Appalachian Mountains, so I doubt it was a Tasmanian devil.”

Hmmm. I wondered about this for a minute, then asked my wife a relevant question, I thought.

“Are you high, like, right now?” She scowled at me. I’m going to take that as a ‘no’.

I was stymied. So, I do what I always do when I’m confounded: I googled it. I actually googled the phrase “biting the testicles off of small bear-like animals”, which is a phrase I never thought I’d ever type, let alone google. Luckily, I did not come up with any videos, instead I found a few rather informative yet unhelpful articles.

Also, I came up with this picture, which I saved, because, well, if I died tomorrow, this is exactly the kind of thing I want someone to find on my computer. I’ve put it in a folder along with a picture of a bunny rabbit with a pancake on it’s head. What? Oh, yes, the picture. Here it is:

Yes, that’s a beaver* biting off it’s own testicles. I’m thinking of making it my desktop wallpaper.

I love the guy’s hand that’s pointing at the beaver in the picture, like he’s saying “Don’t you bite those off! Don’t you dare… aww, he’s doing it! Ewwwww.” Also, is it my imagination or does that beaver look a little blasé about the whole thing?

Allegedly, according to Aesop’s fables, the beaver was once hunted for it’s testicles**, and, knowing this, would, when cornered by hunters, bite off it’s own ‘huevos’ and throw them at the hunters, thus escaping death.

Ah, the miracles of nature.

This is, of course, a fallacy. Aesop was a drinker and a pervert, I reason, and prone to fabulous tales that would later be recognized as fit for reading to children, despite their dark nature. Or am I thinking of Grimm? Oh, I’m just lashing out.

Although, I must admit, it’s a rather elegant defense mechanism, not unlike a lizard losing it’s tail to avoid being eaten by a hawk. Although tails grow back, ‘nuts’ don’t. It’s a trick that can only be done once. You’ve got to really be in peril, I’d think, and even then it would be a toss-up for most male animals.

Also, how many hunters or attackers would continue with their attack after having a set of furry little balls tossed at them in a forest glade? Imagine chasing down a pack of beavers and dodging a bevy of testicular missiles, some of them inevitably hitting you with a velvet ‘thud’. I’d stop in my tracks, I would. I’d really have to reconsider my choice of prey. I might have to reconsider my whole way of life, really. I’d walk home in a daze, have a cup of tea and consider taking up another line of work. That sort of assault can really break your spirit, you know? Do you know what I mean?

I rather hope you don’t.

* The wife doesn’t think that looks like a beaver at all. “I’m telling you, it looks way more like a dog or a raccoon. Why are we even having this argument?!” In my defense, she started it.

** They have magical powers, the beaver’s testes, according to Aesop. I’ll now refrain from making a crude joke implying my own magical anatomy. Again, husband-of-the-year award pending.

Hey! I’m going to be featured at The Guy’s Perspective later this month! Neat! Many thanks to the Sai Ghose for inclusion in the Relationship Humor Carnival. I’ll be posting a link to it later in the month, so stay tuned.

Tags: aesop's fables, beavers, cheeky, dirty jobs, mike rowe, testicles, the wife, vicodin

This entry was posted on Thursday, July 30th, 2009 at 8:00 am and is filed under Best Of HokeBlarg, Misc.. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.