Gonads In The A To Z Challenge

The letter G on a rainy Tuesday of the A to Z April Challenge.  This is getting tougher, especially when I have a theme to follow.  I thought about what to do for Adulthood that starts with G.  Growing up?  Nah too easy.  Growing old?  Done that.  Girls?  I've got three male Minions.  Let's go off the chart and talk about Gonads.

Yes, gonads or balls, guts, testicular fortitude, whatever you want to call it, gonads change both physically and emotionally.  No, I'm not going to tell you about gonads hanging too low in the toilet water when taking a dump, I'm talking about "You've got some serious gonads to attempt to do that" gonads.

As I venture on into Adulthood I find myself becoming less and less brave.  There's reasons for this, the first is that my body just isn't what it used to be.  Yes, I've gained weight but I've always have been fluffy, what I'm saying is my joints and bones are not quite a forgiving as they were 15 years ago.  Now I will assess the situation to make sure I'm not going to hurt myself before I do it.  In the past, head first down a natural rock formation water slide was no worry for me, I had gonads.

Here's a perfect story about how having gonads changes as you get into Adulthood.  The other day Minion #2 and myself went for a hike in a local state park in town.  This isn't out of the norm for us, we love hiking and it was a beautiful spring day.  The state park we went too was flooded into the middle of the parking lot like it is almost every spring, they release the dam and the water shed flows down the river, etc.  We went to check it out first and #2 said, "That would be awesome to go kayaking in, you could kayak all around the campground."  You know what, he had a valid point...until I assessed the situation.

The me of the past would have scooped him up, driving home, loaded the kayak, driving back to the park, strapped him ONTO the kayak with me paddling and would have spent the day exploring the park that is flooded.  But, as I looked at the flooded area, I thought about stumps, beavers, fallen trees, fast flowing water, ice chunks and more, so I quickly deemed it unsafe and #2 looked at me like, "Can you go home and get your balls off the shelf so we can do something?"

We originally came to go hiking, so away we went down one of our favorite trails.  We came to the second of two bridges and noticed it was 1/2 under water, not too deep but it was under water none-the-less.  We started to cross it until I realized that as we put weight on it, the water got deeper.  Again, the me of old would have trudged through the water on the bridge and kept going, but I didn't want wet feet.  I'm such a pussy lately...

Minion #2 noticed there was a short log across the stream we could use to cross, so against my better judgement we did...because after assessing the situation, it looked safe and it was, we crossed no problem but then we had to climb the snow covered hill in front of us.  At this point I told #2, we should turn around because he would slip and fall down the big hill and somehow, he convinced me otherwise.  So up the hill we went, slipping and trudging until we came to the path.  Whew, we made it fairly safe and dry.

Now comes the fun part, as we hiked down the path we noticed it was partially covered in ice from the snow melting and re freezing.  Again I stopped and told him we need to turn back but as I turned around I remembered the hill we just climbed and thought of falling down it, so again, after assessing the situation, we schlepped on.  I will admit it, I was very nervous because of the ice and the long way down.  Minion #2 on the other hand had gonads, we was slipping and falling, sliding and catching himself along the path, while me, the Ball-less Wonder took baby steps and freezing in place in some cases.  15 years ago, eh fuck it!  Let's go!

We it happened.  I slipped on the ice and slid down the mountain and sure enough, I have the injuries to prove it.  No broken bones, but some serious bruising and a damaged ego.  In the past I would have laughed it off and brushed myself off, but now, I continued, limping and whining the whole time.  Now I know why I put my gonads up on the shelf.