"Mama, my balls are gone."

That lovely sentence woke me up at 6:15am on September 9, 2008*. I opened my eyes. "What?" "My balls. They're gone. See?" B was standing, underwear around his knees, pulling his empty scrotum sac to the right of his penis and sqishing it around to show me just how empty it was. Now, I ask you, how would you have responded? I am a woman. I know what's in there and what it's used for and I've even enjoyed a few pair in my life, but I had no clue if this disappearing act was normal or cause for alarm. And I certainly didn't want to alarm B. But I don't hit the ground running when I wake up like B does, so I was a little slow to respond. "Mama? Did you hear me? Do you see?" Blink. Blink, blink. "Yes, I heard. I see. I'm sure they'll be back." That seemed to satisfy him. Thank goodness he did not ask me where they went! I don't think I would have been able to think on my feet for that one.

We got dressed, went downstairs for breakfast and received the hub's daily "good morning" call. I told him B's balls were gone and asked if this was a problem.

"His WHAT are WHERE?" he asked.
"His BALLS. They are no longer in his SCROTUM SAC. Do I need to WORRY?!"
Silence. "Is he in pain?"
"B, are you in pain?"
"No."
"No."
"I don't know. Have him check again before he leaves for kindergarten. If they're not back, call me."

That was funny, in retrospect, b/c what was he gonna do of they aren't back by the time we left for school? Tell me to keep him home and monitor the situation? Call the ped? Go to the ER? Smack him on the butt and hope they popped out?

They were back before he went to school. And when he came home from school, I asked him to check again and they were still there. WebMD had been no help with finding an explination. But to be fair to the website, I didn't really know what to look for. "Nuts disappearing" rendered an article on chocolate. I finally remembered that they are called "testicles" but looking for "testicles disappearing" brought up an article about a PGA Tour golfer who lost his game until he rubbed testosterone on his biceps...not really anything to help my 5 year old. I had put a call into my mom, my resident medical expert, but my dad was out of town so her not answering the phone told me she was galavanting with the girls and who knew when she'd return my call.

I'm thinking this is a normal male experience. I have heard several characters in movies talk about things that made their balls shrivel up or crawl back up. And you know all movies have medical consultants on site to ensure the accuracy of the script, right? RIGHT?!

*This really happened and I posted this story on my personal Facebook page the afternoon that it did.  But since I have some new friends and fans since then, I wanted to share the love here, too.  ;o)