By Phil Italiano

I had a real bada bing uncle—probably not a real uncle, but back then, everyone was an uncle. Guys who changed dad’s tire once, guys who smoked cigars in your living room, guys who may or may not have taken a life. “Uncle.” It was like being knighted, but for men who ate cold spaghetti in wife-beaters.

Anyway, this one we called Uncle Chin. Not because he had a funny chin or a Jay Leno jaw or anything like that. His name was Vincenzo, and there was already a Vinny—Uncle Vin—so someone, in their infinite wisdom, said, “Let’s call this one Chin.” Maybe short for Vincenzo, maybe just an Italian thing, maybe because logic was optional back then. But that was that: Chin.

Now, Uncle Chin had a particular expression—one of those phrases that makes no sense unless you grew up hearing it 400 times before puberty. When he was pissed off at you, or thought you were full of shit, or just wanted to express a general disbelief about the state of the universe, he’d grab his nuts, jiggle his package, and say:

“Tug on my Tonys.”

Or sometimes, “You’re tuggin’ my Tonys.”

Example: “Hey Uncle Chin, I found twenty bucks in the church basket.”

“Get the fuck outta here, you’re tuggin’ my Tonys.”

Another: “Uncle Chin, I just hit the daily Win-4.”

“No way. You’re tuggin’ my Tonys.”

And I always assumed he meant his balls. Because what else could he mean? Nobody ever said it, nobody had to say it. It was like Catholic guilt—it came baked in. You just knew.

But what always stuck with me was the “Tonys” part. Why Tonys? I’ve never heard anyone else, before or since, refer to their nuts as Tonys. Not even as a joke. Was it because he once “hoid” the word “testicles” and figured, yeah, that starts with a T—Tonys, testicles, same diff? Did he once take a shot to the nuts and say “Ow, my Tonys!” and it stuck?

Or maybe, and hear me out here—maybe it was just to be fun.

Because Uncle Chin didn’t need a reason. None of them did. These were men who drank anisette from a Flintstones jelly jar and gave everyone they liked a nickname that sounded like a federal offense. You think they were workshopping punchlines? You think they were running a tight five at Caroline’s? No. They were just being weird, and alive, and themselves.

And maybe that’s the real point.

Maybe that’s what we lost somewhere between hashtags and health insurance and whatever this beige modern life turned into.

We stopped making shit up. We stopped saying things that made no sense just because they made us laugh. We got self-conscious. Everyone’s worried about optics and branding and being “problematic.” No one’s got time for Tonys anymore. Nobody grabs their nuts and tells a kid “tug on my Tonys” in the 21st century—not unless you want to end up on a watchlist or a registry.

But here’s the thing: not everything in life needs a good reason. Some things just ARE. Some things exist because someone strange and brilliant and half-drunk made them up and said them out loud and it stuck.

We didn’t need likes or followers or algorithmic validation. We just needed a reason to laugh.

Or no reason at all.

And that’s the real loss—not the Tonys themselves, but the freedom to just be fucking silly without filling out a form or issuing a disclaimer.

So go ahead—tug on my Tonys.

I dare you.

—P.