A River Runs Through It

For the first time in my adult life I'm not totally full of shit. I have a colonoscopy this afternoon, and the preparation for that procedure is pretty spectacular if you've never done it. If you want to know what it's like, try this: watch the movie "The Ten Commandments" with Charlton Heston, and skip to the part where Moses parts the Red Sea and leads the Hebrews out of Egypt, then fast forward it. That will pretty much give you the idea. Particularly when you get to the part where Yul Brynner and his villainous pals are wiped out by a vengeful God.

I found a lady's wristwatch, the head of a G.I. Joe action figure and an old rusted-out car muffler. Who knew?

The nasty stuff they made me drink to clean out my colon is called "Golytely," Someone somewhere has a very sick sense of humor; I'll never be able to watch "Breakfast at Tiffany's" again. You mix up 4 liters of a clear liquid that tastes like axle grease and drink an 8-ounce glass of it every ten minutes until it's gone. I never knew how much 4 liters really was until last night. It's about 12,834 8-ounce glasses. And ten minutes? Ten minutes takes about two minutes, then you have to drink another one. Every time the microwave timer went off signaling another glass was due there was much wailing, lamentation and rending of garments in the Hulles household, of that you can be sure.

I am going to pass along a tip to you if you've never had a colonoscopy before and are scheduled for one. A week or so before the procedure the jovial colonoscopers send you a printed sheet of detailed instructions in the mail telling you everything you need to do. But they neglect to tell you one important thing: make sure you are not running low on toilet paper. I had to end up wiping my ass with my cat. Good thing she's declawed; that is all I will say on that subject.

But now I have a clean colon. I stuck my head up there and looked around, and the walls are shiny and the floors sparkle. It echos in there too, which is kind of cool. When I went outside this morning to get the paper, the brisk breeze blowing across my asshole caused a kind of mellow fluting sound. I found I could adjust the pitch of this sound with my sphincter and happily stood outside in my robe and played Bach's "Toccata and Fugue in D Minor" until I found the red dot of a laser sight on my chest. My neighbors must not appreciate classical music, the swine.

So wish me luck with the procedure itself this afternoon. I am terrified of it, frankly. I am not looking forward to having semitrailer trucks and camera crews and gaffers and best boys and the like shoved up my ass. But glass-half-full guy that I am, I intend to salvage something from the horrendous experience -- I'm going to try and get a copy of the video of my colon and post it here for your edification and viewing enjoyment. In fact, I'm confident it will become one of the more popular videos on YouTube this week. Maybe I can get Charlton Heston to narrate it.

But the thing that really scares me about the colonoscopy is this: what if I like it? What if I can't get enough of it? What if every week or so I have to buy a jug of Golytely on the black market and show up in disguise at the clinic and make them give me yet another deliciously exhilarating colonoscopy? It would be a sad and furtive existence, living on the fringes of society, shunned by my friends who read too many tough-love self-help books, attending Colonoscopoholics Anonymous, "Hi, my name is Hulles and I like medical equipment shoved up my ass," losing my blog to some upstart young puke who is much wittier and more handsome than I am and that Kristen Painter is totally hot for, finally being forced to make my own laxatives from dirt and willow bark and shove a bendable novelty straw up my ass in a desperate and pathetic attempt at one more fix....

However, I am happy to report that it seems pretty unlikely that this will be the case, so both you and my cat can breathe a heavy sigh of relief.

-- Hulles