The day I took my eye off the ball...

So there I was, having a routine summer trim – as you do - when…

It was a glorious summer’s day when the thought of a full day dressed in all black nylon whilst serving the masses of Brighton American Hots prompted me to take a few inches off the winter coat. This involved nothing more than a rusty pair of scissors and an overly snug shower cubicle.

All was going well; the shower was temperately refreshing, the iPod was playing an old favourite and the thatch was falling effortlessly from my nether regions. I then felt a touch of resistance within the jaws of the blades and thought it worth a look below. To my horror a fine jet of crimson jus was spraying against the brilliant white tiles of the cubicle. 

I’d taken my eye off the ball and nipped a vein.

It looked horrendous. Scenes in Scream have had less blood splattered across the set. I immediately grabbed a handful of nutsack and held on for dear life but the blood kept pouring out of my fingers as if wringing out a towel full of red paint.

As with any other form of relatively minor injury, I didn’t initially panic, as I knew that it would clot eventually and I could continue my routine and get to work on time. Sadly there’s not a great deal of fat or muscle on a ball sac to assist in the clotting process and so for twenty minutes I watched in relative horror as my life fled through a hole in my bollocks.

At this time I thought it best to consult a professional but wasn’t sure who to go to. Was it serious enough to warrant a 999 call? I didn’t have a doctor in the area yet so that was out. Mum…? No. I was pacing around the flat leaving a red snail’s trail and making a mess and the thought of being found in a puddle of my own ball blood was too much to bear. So I picked up the mobile and headed back to the crime scene in the shower once more.

I relayed my predicament to the emergency assistant on the phone who struggled to hide her amusement. I wasn't in a state of panic at all and certainly not in any pain, it was more the concern of inconveniencing anyone unnecessarily and the possibility of a tombstone saying Chris – couldn’t keep his eye on the ball that worried me more than anything.

It was 10:45am by the time the lady informed me the paramedics were on their way. I was due at work at 11am, it was a ten-minute walk away and I had blood pissing out of my balls. Time to make the call. Grant is a good friend of mine but I still wasn’t sure how he’d handle the idea that one of the only two members of his staff working on that hot summer’s day in the middle of the busiest week of the year wasn't going to make it.

Running out of inspiration – amongst other things - for an alternative excuse I told him I simply wasn’t going to make it in today. He naturally asked why. Beating around the bush – a lot – I said I’d… um…‘had an accident’ and that was it. He’d been a restaurant manager for many years and had heard every excuse known to man, except this one. I ran my tale past him and he started to snigger and then giggle and then laugh and then roar. He enjoyed the mental image of my awkward predicament so much he immediately dismissed my having to work and congratulated me on the original nature of the gory yarn I had just spun.

Then my phone rang. I didn’t recognise the number. I answered it and it was the paramedics. My flat was on the 5^th floor of a Victorian townhouse in central Brighton without a lift but more importantly without an intercom or a door I could open from within the penthouse. I told them I’d be right down.

Donning some camouflaged army shorts I grabbed a handful of bleeding scrotum and ran down the ten flights of stairs to the awaiting aide. The moment I opened the front door the two of them sized me up and once again struggled to contain their amusement.

Their enjoyment of the sight afore them rubbed off on me and I began to see the funny side and with a bashful laugh I asked them to follow me up the stairs. I was leaving a trail - at least that what’s the rather lovely paramedic girl told me as she grabbed a piece of gauze from her jacket pocket and started swabbing the stairs behind me. I insisted she not bother as the ancient carpet would only benefit from the added splash of colour.

She was gorgeous. Long flowing auburn hair tied up into that American Cheerleader ponytail every man loves and with an ample cleavage peering through her green tunic setting my mind racing, I was hoping that she might have been the one inspecting the damage. In hindsight the sight of a naked man’s testicles splashing blood all over the white kitchen floor was never going to induce the schoolboy dream of an afternoon of nurse-patient frivolity, so into the kitchen came Dave to have a closer look.

I removed my bloodied hand cautiously only to spray him with a fine jet not his green pants.. Thankfully he laughed and looking up at me said, “Nope, there’s nothing we can do with that, Chris. You’re just going to have to hold your testicles until it clots up.” I mentioned the idea of smearing a load of SuperGlu over the wound and continuing with my life once again but he didn’t look too convinced and talked me out of it. This clearly wasn't in the paramedic quick-fix handbook. He handed me a large handful of gauze and disappeared into the afternoon with his lovely assistant whilst I contemplated an afternoon holding my ‘nads.

An hour passed without further incident. I didn’t dare look at my gash until I was sure it had healed up. So to kill some time I cranked up the computer and went on Facebook to see whether anyone else I knew had suffered the same grooming fate as I.

I was finding the whole situation rather humurous now and thought I‘d share my amusement with those who might be online, as you do. Within seconds the masses started asking me for photos - the sick bastards. Obedient as ever I grabbed my camera phone and snapped a few pics of the CSI scene in the bathroom. It was pretty gross. I wasn't going to get a decent shot of the cut for fear of damaging the hopefully clotting blood around it so they’d have to use their imagination.

My sister was the first to call, as she loves a good laugh. I talked her through the incident, as much as I could through the fits of laughter on the other end. Once she calmed down she asked whether in fact it might be more serious than my tale first provoked. I told her that I had been instructed by Dave to hold my balls for two hours but if that didn’t work to go to the hospital.

By the time I put the phone down to my giggling sibling, two hours had passed. Shit. How am I going to get to the hospital? Brighton is a great place and no mistake but it is also a nightmare for parking. I’d been living there for 18months now and still hadn’t been granted a parking permit. That often meant walking outside to hop in the car and drive away only to remember you’d parked the car a week before some three or four miles away in a different county altogether. This was one of those instances. Thinking quickly, considering the lack of blood still left within me I grabbed the bloodied phone again and called a cab. Standing outside my house, in army shorts, a t-shirt on inside out (I later learned) and flip-flops I waited patiently for my chariot to escort me to the hospital.

We screeched up to the A&E doors and I ran up to the reception as quick as I could. I jumped the queue of minor grazes and broken nails and asked Janice to pop me through to the doctor sharpish. She quite rightly told me to join the queue. I then showed her my red snail trail to which she looked quite aghast. She asked where it was coming from and I don’t recall saying anything other than looking at her sympathetically for some form of connection. A light bulb flew out of her head and she picked up the phone. Rather than telling me to take a seat she ushered me into the nearest doctor. I noticed a janitor reluctantly mopping me up behind.

The doctor also found the whole situation hilarious and asked me how I did it. Filling in his forms without allowing me to see as if in a GCSE exam, he then decided to take a look. To his and my relief, I left his white coat as white as snow but continued to drip like a broken tap on the tiled floor of his cubicle. Looking slightly less amused by this, he handed me another pile of gauze and ushered me away saying there was nothing he could do about it either. What did we pay the NHS to do for Christ’s sake! I tried to tell him how long I had sat there holding my bollocks but my yeah buts and no buts fell on deaf ears.

Another twelve quid later and I was home once more sat on my blood splattered dining room chair still concerned how long it would take before I was going to resemble E.T. when they find him by the river; reduced to a shrivelled pink prune on the floor of my studio flat.

News travels quick in these circumstances and within a couple of hours the boys came round to see how I was. They were quite clearly there to see how the carnage was and to ‘bagsie’ any of my possessions they’d had their eye on should the worst come to worst.

I had other things on my mind than the fastidiousness of my flat and hadn't clocked it but it was a disgusting, bloodied mess. My balls had spread themselves far and wide and covered almost every corner of my little flat. One of my ‘friends’ had brought his dog along who seemed to enjoy lapping up the red paint splashed in a Jackson Pollock style all over the kitchen lino. That would save me running the mop around.

The boys told me to 'man up' and come to the pub across the road. Not daring to move my hand, I put my t-shirt on the right way around and slipped on the flip-flops and went for a pint. A pint or two in I risked a check and to my delight nothing seeped out. I bought a celebratory round and enjoyed quaffing several more. Five or six pints later it was time to go wee-wee. Forgetting all about my injury I got up without a hint of caution and ripped open my bollocks once again.

This time it was really quite bad. The Lion and Lobster has a typically pub-like red carpet but a dark crimson path was deposited as I ran out the side door up to the humiliation-free comfort of my flat. I lay down a couple of Waitrose bags underneath my embarrassing injury and lay on the bed. I must have lay there until three in the morning holding my nuts until I fell asleep.

I awoke at 9:30am convinced I’d be dead and ran to the bathroom mirror to see if I was opaque or not. Thankfully I hadn't become a translucent image of my former self and the healing had come on leaps and bounds throughout the night.

The weather was lovely once more and so I took a wander down to the restaurant to explain my story to Grant who I’m sure would still be laughing. As soon as I walked in the door the entire staff asked how my bollocks were. Cheers mate.

On the way home I bumped in to the boys once more and as it was a glorious 30 degrees we took in a swim in the surprisingly tempting English Channel. I figured that the cold and salty nature of the sea would help in the healing process and we swam around like little kids until hypothermia gave us a nod. I was last to get out of the channel and thought I’d got away with a refreshing swim without dying and had helped in speeding up the healing. I staggered up the pebbly beach like a wounded soldier as only Brighton beach can make you, only to be told to look down. The wound had opened right up again and my inner thighs and calves looked like a scene out of Reservoir Dogs.

Bollocks.

CK