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PaperclipPerfector  23hr ago (text post)   1127 thread views

Friday Fun Thread for January 16, 2026

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Any middle aged or approaching middle aged men here have fun ideas for blowing off steam when you want to blow up your life? Idk I'm just feeling very bored with the stupid corporate job and day to day grind.

I turned 40 last month. For my midlife crisis a decided to get back into some of the things 20 year old me used to do. So I got a used unicycle and erg (a type of rowing machine). It's been a blast. But it almost wasn't... because I have one less testicle now than I did back then.

Both unicycling and erging are notorious ball crushers, and it's much worse when you've only got one bad boy dangling down there because it hangs right in the center where the seat is and it's constantly trying to get crushed. When you've got two, they hang just off to the side a bit and so you're much less likely to crush them. I've had to splurge and get special underwear so that I can do my unicycling/erging.

I lost the testicle when I was 29 to testicular cancer. One day I was straining a bit too hard on the toilet and heard a "pop" from my right dangler. Worst pain of my life by far. I was on the floor for the next 30 minutes unable to move, then I barfed a couple of times in the toilet, then I hobbled my way over to the ER where I got the diagnosis. Surgery was scheduled for about 1 month later.

The main thing to know about a cancer cell is that it wants to reproduce. This leads to exponential growth in tissue size, and my type of cancer cell had a reproduction rate of 3 days. So every 3 days, the size of the right little dude doubled. And soon he was not a little dude at all. By the time of the surgery he measured 4 inches in diameter.

The weirdest question I've ever been asked was the day before my surgery: "Do you want a prosthetic testicle?" The surgeon had a handful of models lined up on a shelf for me to pick from. The cheapest one looked like a rainbow colored bouncy ball and was $200. That was way more than I wanted to spend on something only my wife would ever see, and so I declined.

And so now---in the middle of my midlife crisis---whenever I ride my unicycle or sit down to exercise---I have to put on special underwear first.

This is... quite a comment. Thanks for sharing. Glad you made it.

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