This story is totally and utterly true.

In the spring of 1994, I fell in love with an extraordinary woman. She worked in a local coffeehouse owned by the owner of the bar I worked in at the time. The two venues were adjacent, connected by a shared backroom door.

Michelle had brains, beauty, gusto, and grace. She had Newcastle hair and coffee-bean eyes. She also had Hodgkin’s, though it had been in remission for two years.

Before each bartending shift, I used to come through the backroom door into the coffeehouse and request her special triple mocha mint masterpiece — as well as a few moments of her enlightened, enthusiastic conversation. My heart fluttered from espresso and infatuation.

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Until now, I have gotten through this life without ever having to say those 7 terrible words. Through all the things that went wrong with me over the years – busted knee, fractured foot, bashed in teeth, ruptured eardrums, high arches – I was always grateful for never having problems with my penis or surrounding penile areas: Nary a crab has hiked across my murky grasslands, no herpes boil ever bubbled on my glans, no gonococcus has wriggled through my urethra, nor wart, nor chancroid, nor stalk of Chlamydia ever found purchase in the garden of my groinhouse.

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