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Dave Barry's Colonoscopy Journal

I called my friend Andy Sable, a gastroenterologist, to make an appointment for a colonoscopy. A few days later, in his office, Andy showed me a color diagram of the colon, a lengthy organ that appears to go all over the place, at one point passing briefly through Minneapolis.

Then Andy explained the colonoscopy procedure to me in a thorough, reassuring and patient manner. I nodded thoughtfully, but I didn't really hear anything he said, because my brain was shrieking, quote, 'HE'S GOING TO STICK A TUBE 17,000 FEET UP YOUR BEHIND!'

I left Andy's office with some written instructions, and a prescription for a product called 'MoviPrep,' which comes in a box large enough to hold a microwave oven. I will discuss MoviPrep in detail later; for now suffice it to say that we must never allow it to fall into the hands of America's enemies.

I spent the next several days productively sitting around being nervous. Then, on the day before my colonoscopy, I began my preparation. In accordance with my instructions, I didn't eat any solid food that day; alI I had was chicken broth, which is basically water, only with less flavor.

Then, in the evening, I took the MoviPrep. You mix two packets of powder together in a one-liter plastic jug, then you fill it with lukewarm water. (For those unfamiliar with the metric system, a liter is about 32 gallons.) Then you have to drink the whole jug. This takes about an hour, because MoviPrep tastes - and here I am being kind - like a mixture of goat spit and urinal cleanser, with just a hint of lemon.

The instructions for MoviPrep, clearly written by somebody with a great sense of humor, state that after you drink it, 'a loose watery bowel movement may result.' This is kind of like saying that after you jump off your roof, you may experience contact with the ground. MoviPrep is a nuclear laxative. I don't want to be too graphic, here, but: Have you ever seen a space-shuttle launch? This is pretty much the MoviPrep experience, with you as the shuttle. There are times when you wish the commode had a seat belt. You spend several hours pretty much confined to the bathroom, spurting violently. You eliminate everything. And then, when you figure you must be totally empty, you have to drink another liter of MoviPrep, at which point, as far as I can tell, your bowels travel into the future and start eliminating food that you have not even eaten yet.

After an action-packed evening, I finally got to sleep.

The next morning my wife drove me to the clinic. I was very nervous. Not only was I worried about the procedure, but I had been experiencing occasional return bouts of MoviPrep spurtage. I was thinking, 'What if I spurt on Andy?' How do you apologize to a friend for something like that? Flowers would not be enough.

At the clinic I had to sign many forms acknowledging that I understood and totally agreed with whatever the heck the forms said. Then they led me to a room full of other colonoscopy people, where I went inside a little curtained space and took off my clothes and put on one of those hospital garments designed by sadist perverts, the kind that, when you put it on, makes you feel even more naked than when you are actually naked.

Then a nurse named Eddie put a little needle in a vein in my left hand. Ordinarily I would have fainted, but Eddie was very good, and I was already lying down. Eddie also told me that some people put vodka in their MoviPrep. At first I was ticked off that I hadn't thought of this, but then I pondered what would happen if you got yourself too tipsy to make it to the bathroom, so you were staggering around in full Fire Hose Mode. You would have no choice but to burn your house.

When everything was ready, Eddie wheeled me into the procedure room, where Andy was waiting with a nurse and an anesthesiologist. I did not see the 17,000-foot tube, but I knew Andy had it hidden around there somewhere. I was seriously nervous at this point. Andy had me roll over on my left side, and the anesthesiologist began hooking something up to the needle in my hand. There was music playing in the room, and I realized that the song was 'Dancing Queen' by Abba. I remarked to Andy that, of all the songs that cou ld be playing during this particular procedure, 'Dancing Queen' has to be the least appropriate. 'You want me to turn it up?' said Andy, from somewhere behind me. 'Ha ha,' I said. And then it was time, the moment I had been dreading for more than decade.

If you are squeamish, prepare yourself, because I am going to tell you, in explicit detail, exactly what it was like. I have no idea. Really. I slept through it. One moment, Abba was shrieking 'Dancing Queen! Feel the beat from the tambourine ...'.. and the next moment, I was back in the other room, waking up in a very mellow mood.

Andy was looking down at me and asking me how I felt. I felt excellent. I felt even more excellent when Andy told me that it was all over, and that my colon had passed with flying colors. I have never been prouder of an internal organ.

Life's a Party. Crash it.

Jeremy: The great 19th century philosopher Schopenhauer, he said, at that moment when a human sees another human in danger, that there's this breaking in of metaphysical awareness. Do you know what that awareness is, Gloria?

Gloria: What?

Jeremy: That we're all one. That separateness is an illusion, and that I'm one with everyone--with the Prime Minister of England, and my cousin Harry, you and me, the fat kid from "What's Happening!", The Olsen twins, Natalie Portman, the guy who wrote "Catcher in the Rye," Nat King Cole, Carrot Top, Jay-Z, Weird Al Yankovic, Harry Potter, if he existed, the whore on the street corner, your mother--we're all one.

Gloria: We are?

Worry

Is there a magic cutoff period when offspring become accountable for their own actions? Is there a wonderful moment when parents may become detached spectators in the lives of their children and shrug, 'It's their life,' and feel nothing? When I was in my twenties , I stood in a hospital corridor waiting for doctors to put a few stitches in my daughter's head. I asked, 'When do you stop worrying?' The nurse said, 'When they are out of the accident stage.' My Dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my thirties, I sat on a little chair in a classroom and heard how one of my children talked incessantly, disrupted the class, and was headed for a career making license plates. As if to read my mind, a teacher said, 'Don't worry, they all go through this stage and then you may sit back, relax and enjoy them.' My dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.

When I was in my forties, I spent a lifetime waiting for the phone to ring, the cars to come home, the front door to open. A friend said, 'They're trying to find themselves. Don't worry, in a few years, you may stop worrying. They'll be adults.' My dad just smiled faintly and said nothing.

By the time I was 50, I was sick & tired of being vulnerable. I was still worrying over my children, but there was a new wrinkle. There was nothing I could do about it. My Dad just smiled faintly and said nothing. I continued to anguish over their failures, be tormented by their frustrations and absorbed in their disappointments.

My friends said that when my kids are married I could stop worrying and lead my own life. I wanted to believe that, but I was haunted by my dad's warm smile and his occasional, 'You look pale. Are you all right? Call me the minute you get home. Are you depressed about something?'

May it be that parents are sentenced to a lifetime of worry? Is concern for one another handed down like a torch to blaze the trail of human frailties and the fears of the unknown? Is concern a curse or is it a virtue that elevates us to the highest form of life?

One of my children became very irritable recently, saying to me, 'Where were you? I've been calling for 3 days, and no one answered I was worried.' I smiled a warm smile.

The torch has been passed.

Being a Mother

Somebody said it takes about six weeks to get back to normal after you've had a baby. That Somebody doesn't know that once you're a mother, "Normal" is history.

Somebody said being a mother is boring.... That Somebody never rode in a car driven by a teenager with a driver's permit.

Somebody said if you're a "good" mother, your child will "turn out good". That Somebody thinks a child comes with directions and a guarantee.

Somebody said good mothers never raise their voices. That Somebody never came out the back door just in time to see her child hit a golf ball through the neighbor's kitchen window.

Somebody said you don't need an education to be a mother. That Somebody never helped a fourth grader with her math.

Somebody said a mother can find all the answers to her child-rearing questions in the books. That Somebody never had a child stuff beans up his nose or in his ears.

Somebody said you can't love the fourth child as much as you love the first. That Somebody doesn't have four children.

Somebody said the hardest part of being a mother is labor and delivery. That Somebody never watched her "baby" get on the bus for the first day of kindergarden. Or on a plane headed for "military boot camp".

Somebody said a mother can do her job with her eyes closed and one hand tied behind her back. That Somebody never organized four giggling Brownies to sell cookies.

Somebody said a mother can stop worrying after her child gets married. That Somebody doesn't know that marriage adds a new son or daughter-in-law to a mother's heartstrings.

Somebody said a mother's job is done when her last child leaves home. That Somebody never had grandchildren.

Somebody said your mother knows that you love her, so you don't need to tell her. That Somebody isn't a mother.

Cinco de Mayo

A white guy, a black guy, a Mexican, a Polish guy all walk into a bar.
Bartender says, “What is this, some kind of joke?”