Being a tad of a history buff, I found out this bit of trivia about this guy's missing member.
It started out an Eastern European folk tale about a dude who got drunk, waking up without a nose. Nose became a social equivalent for penis in this story. Anyway, he found it on a blanket in the market for sale. After negotiating a price, he bought it back. Culture had found the nose to become a convenient euphemism for an unmentionable body part to detach.
The moral (usually East. European fables have one) escapes me unless one translates it to being a dick or an excuse for telling tall tales.