There comes a time in every persons life when gastroenterologists make it onto the list of doctors. Once you have been introduced to the specialty, you must become reacquainted at least every ten years or so. If your personal or family history is not pristine then you get to learn your gastroenterologists first name and perhaps have coffee together on a regular basis.

Dave Barry on Colonoscopies

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; all 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 could be playing during this particular procedure, ‘Dancing
Queen’ had 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 a 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
yelling, ‘Dancing Queen, feel the beat of 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.

Subject: More on colonoscopies . . .

A physician claimed that the following are actual comments made by
his patients (predominately male) while he was performing their
colonoscopies:

1. ‘Take it easy, Doc. You’re boldly going where no man has gone
before!’

2. ‘Find Amelia Earhart yet?’

3. ‘Can you hear me NOW?’

4. ‘Are we there yet? Are we there yet? Are we there yet?’

5. ‘You know, in Arkansas , we’re now legally married.’

6. ‘Any sign of the trapped miners, Chief?’

7. ‘You put your left hand in, you take your left hand out….’

8. ‘Hey! Now I know how a Muppet feels!’

9. ‘If your hand doesn’t fit, you must quit!’

10. ‘Hey Doc, let me know if you find my dignity.’

11. ‘You used to be an executive at Enron, didn’t you?’

12. ‘God, now I know why I am not gay.’

And the best one of all.

13. ‘Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is not up
there?’

I call your attention to question # 11, which simply read:

LIST, IN ANY ORDER, THE FOUR SEASONS:

1.. ________ 2. ______  3. ______  4. _________

Now, could you possibly imagine

West Virginia

HAVE YOU HEARD ABOUT THE TWO DUCK HUNTERS FROM WISCONSIN? ABSOLUTELY A TRUE
STORY HEARD ON A WISCONSIN RADIO STATION REPORTING ON THE INCIDENT.

A guy buys a new Lincoln Navigator for $42,500.00 (with monthly payments of
$560.00).

He and a friend go duck hunting in upper Wisconsin . It’s midwinter; and of
course all of the lakes are frozen. These two guys go out on the ice with
their GUNS, a DOG, and of course the new NAVIGATOR.

They decide they want to make a natural looking open water area for the
ducks to focus on, something for the decoys to float on.

Now making a hole in the ice large enough to invite a passing duck, is going
to take a little more power than the average drill auger can produce.

So, out of the back of the new Navigator comes a stick of dynamite with a
short 40 second-fuse. Now our two Rocket Scientists, afraid they might slip
on the ice while trying to run away after lighting the fuse (and becoming
toast, along with the Navigator), decide on the following course of action:
they light the 40 second fuse; then, with a mighty thrust, they throw the
stick of dynamite as far away as possible.

Remember a couple of paragraphs back when I mentioned the NAVIGATOR, the
GUNS, and the DOG..??? Let’s talk about the dog: A highly trained Black Lab
used for RETRIEVING; especially things thrown by the owner.

You guessed it: the dog takes off across the ice at a high rate of speed and
grabs the stick of dynamite, with the burning 40-second fuse, just as it
hits the ice. The two men swallow, blink, start waving their arms and, with
veins in their necks swelling to resemble stalks of rhubarb, scream and
holler at the dog to stop. The dog, now apparently cheered on by his master,
keeps coming.

One hunter panics, grabs the shotgun and shoots the dog. The shotgun is
loaded with #8 bird shot, hardly big enough to stop a Black Lab. The dog
stops for a moment, slightly confused, then continues on. Another shot, and
this time the dog, still standing, becomes really confused and of course
terrified, thinks these two geniuses have gone insane. The dog takes off to
find cover, UNDER the brand new Navigator.

The men continue to scream as they run. The red hot exhaust pipe on the
truck touches the dog’s rear end, he yelps, drops the dynamite under the
truck and takes off after his master.

Then ” BOOOOOOOOOOOOM ” ! ! ! ! The truck is blown to bits and sinks to the
bottom of the lake, leaving the two idiots standing there with “I can’t
believe this just happened” looks on their faces.

The insurance company says that sinking a vehicle in a lake by illegal use
of explosives is NOT COVERED by the policy. And he still had yet to make the
first of those $560.00 a month payments.

The dog is okay. .doing fine, but probably is looking for a new home.

And you thought Rednecks only lived in the South…..