Friends of Mabel

At the risk of taking the "I says" out of this blog, I present to you another wonderful tale from one of my wonderful readers. Due to the explicit nature of this story, the author has requested that I shield his identity. That said, many of you will have no problem discerning the nom behind this plume. This is vintage stuff--a drop in the bucket really--from a man with a prolific plentitude of penis-related parables. A modern retelling, really, of the old "from rags (or tube socks) to riches" story. This one's hard to beat.

"Confessions of an Erstwhile Sperm Donor"

In the shower the other day, while looking at my pecker, my ears perked up. Our good, fumbling friend Neal Conan came on the radio, interviewing the product of a semi-natural conception. That conversation – and the sight of my penis – brought the memories flooding back. Three years ago, given over the allure of certain easy money and questionable altruism, I found myself filling out donor paperwork at a sperm bank.

My roommate at the time alerted me to the existence of the opportunity – the first time I had become aware, despite a continuous series of advertisements in the local paper. I responded with gusto, heading off to a nondescript office in an even-more-nondescript office building.

After stepping through the door and pulling out my tackle, the blushing receptionist informed me that a lengthy amount of paperwork and a pair of repeat appointments would precede my first contribution of genetic material. Upset that I had been saving up a deposit for a few days, I nevertheless sat down with the clipboard and filled out preliminary information. After its completion, the woman politely scheduled a follow-up and I headed home to practice.

Upon my return to the nondescript building and office, I met Carla – as we'll call her. No, let's call her Karla. Karla took some more preliminary information and then, rather abruptly, sent me home with a sizeable packet of blank forms and a $25 gift certificate to Starbucks. The gift certificate, I learned, was pittance for the labor I was about to undertake. Arriving at home and peeling back the first page of the 50-page packet, I discovered that the sperm bank wanted to know every detail of my life, from birth on up. As if baring my soul wasn't enough, they also wanted tidbits on every first- and second-degree relative that I could recall. A brief sampling of the information the good folks at the sperm bank wished to know:

A) every recreational and non-recreational drug I had ever tried; B) all of my sexual partners; C) every step of my education; D) high school clubs to which I had belonged; E) illnesses suffered by my great aunt; F) if I had any genital piercings.

After all but hand-writing my genome on the god-forsaken inquest, I returned to the bank – or "clinic" as it was affectionately called – and turned in my magnum opus. The apprehension with which I did was familiar – it was not so different from handing in a final exam. You see, the evaluation of my documents would determine if I were eligible to step up to the next level in the course of becoming a bona fide sperm donor. Were I accepted into the upper echelon of masturbators-for-hire, I would be set to earn seventy-five US dollars per "contribution." With the maximum rate of donation set at every three days, that means I would be standing to earn nearly eight-hundred bucks a month – for jerking off.

I could almost hit the poverty line with hand-to-gland combat.

More to come... Behind closed doors.