I recently took my 15th final farewell trip to the third world racquet club in Tucson. I learned something that may change the way I look at a small part of life — forever. Once you hear this story, it’s going to mess you up too.

OK 15 is a made up number – it could have been my 20th or 25th. I just know that since I changed jobs and moved back to Phoenix two years ago, I wander down to the third world about once a month to drink Larry’s beer and pretend to play tennis.

It makes for a successful “Tuesday” night when there are few to be had. Before I left, Tuesday and most Thursday nights would draw 8-16 senior men to waste 90 minutes chasing little fuzzy balls followed by 2-3 hours of drinking. But age, injury and quitting the USTA has squandered our “success.”

There’s still 16 on the group text, but Tuesdays are lucky to draw 4 players. Thursdays have dissolved to occasional begging for a single player or a lonely figure hitting against a ball machine (one of the original uses of Artificial Intelligent to replace people — the machine doesn’t miss, but it leaves a mess. Like a senile, senior man, it refuses to pick up its own balls).

New people won’t put up with our bullshit, so it’s the same sad group slogging through sets and being peer pressured into finishing the last of those two semi-cool growlers.

But my monthly trips create a raft of excuses for my fellows to join me:

We usually get at least 8 — last trip we had 10 — 12 if you count Ravi Uno’s 30-minute drop by and Gibson waddling in after tennis was done.

It’s a ritual. Grif, the senior member of the group in age and time-in, often lets me stay at his house. The east wing of the Grif house has a private bedroom and bath close to the laundry and the garage.

Hangovers are sort of forgotten through a breakfast of bacon (often homemade), eggs, toast (or unique muffins or bagels from original bakeries in Tucson) custom jams and salsa’s (courtesy of his daughter).

My wife would hate it if I made comparisons to my normal breakfast at home. But I don’t do that because there is no comparison…

Sausage talk

It was at this last breakfast that it happened.

Annabelle (Grif’s first, third and current wife — long story) was awake early — first time ever. She was going through the mail and packages.

“I see we got an Amazon penis,” she said as she picked up a foot-long package.

I was afraid to look over my shoulder to see what she could possibly be opening. Bad thoughts raced through my mind. Had I been kidnapped into some sort of grandparent sex cult in the foothills of Tucson?

Grif had just asked me to taste his personal sausage and see if it was “all right.”

“I sprinkled it with cayenne and red pepper,” he said proudly. It was delicious. But were these pieces of spicy pork a bad metaphor for what lay in wait in Annabelle’s package?

I didn’t want to look. I didn’t want to engage. “Amazon’s what?” I asked like a priest pretending he’s never seen male genitalia before.

To my shock and relief, she didn’t open the package. Just turned it on its side.

“Amazon’s penis,” she said. As she stroked the logo outlines that curved up toward the… head.

“I always thought that was a smile — maybe even a little smirk,” I said.

Annabelle smiled — maybe even gave a little smirk. “No it’s a penis.” She stroked it harder and faster the second time like she was Vanna White flipping little willies on Wheel of Fortune.

Why had I never seen this before? It’s not the normal angle for a phallic symbol. Usually those are fully erect and perfectly perpendicular — probably because they were cut it stone and had to stand on their own, or its Jeff Bezos’ “rocket” being held up on the launch pad.

Phallus are usually straight on, like a man looking down or standing in front of a mirror. But this Amazon thang is from a woman’s point of view. It’s in profile. Like the owner has just switched off the lights and is turning to “get ya.”

It’s also got more “curve” than I would expect.

It’s not quite the “bent carrot” I keep seeing on TV, but it looks like it’s heading in that direction.

Jeff B have PD?

Now I’m wondering if Jeff Bezos has Peyronie’s disease (PD). Maybe his packages got bent by all the newly poor people forced to wear diapers in his warehouses. One shift in diapers, and I’d be ready to bend the member of my oppressor.

The bent carrot TV commercials make it look easy. Take this little drug, and your penis can be straight as the head of a Blue Origin rocket in no time…

Why are both of these heads, just like the other? Wow man look, it’s a Double Dickhead…

Of course, the PD TV treatment is a costly injection in the penis and the side effects are horrific including:

  • Penile fracture — usually starts with a popping sound in an erect penis and can look much worse than it sounds…
  • Severe allergic reactions — hives, swollen face, trouble breathing
  • Back pain
  • Fainting

But the manual treatments sound as awful as the shot:

  • Hard, hard massage — that could make it worse
  • “Milking” the flaccid penis to create “micro-tears”
  • Penile Traction Therapy — we don’t want to know how much weight they have to use…
  • “Modeling” — which is hard pulling to straighten — possibly combined with collagen injections
  • IPP implants and “bending” back…

I doubt the Amazon penis would have to undergo all of those treatments to fix its logo. But if he doesn’t start paying taxes and help the rest of us, we all may want to personally oversee the PD fix for Jeff B.

Either way, thanks to my last trip to the third world, and the show and tell from Annabelle, I will never be able to look at an Amazon package the same way again.

And now, you won’t be able to either…