Well, at some point in your life, you finally start to get old and have to start doing stuff involving medical procedures.  As my friend Bruce R. said once, "You know you're getting old when you start standing around discussing what procedures you've had."  So true.

Anyway, I had my first colonoscopy on December 31st.  "Riding the black snake" as a friend of one of my customer's says.

In case you don't know about the procedure, it's when they stick a tube ( which happens to be black ) containing a camera up your rear-end to take a look at your colon.

The actual procedure is mostly painless since they knock you out before they start the process.

The real issue is in the preparation.  For some reason, they would like your colon to be clean.  This means no real food for the day before, nothing to eat or drink the day of, either.  That's not too bad since chicken broth and Jello are on the list of approved stuff.

The problem lies in the cleansing drink they make you take. It's active ingredient is sodium phosphate - which tastes like "liquid ass juice," if you can picture that in your mind.  I even bought the "cherry flavored" version which was an out and out lie.  Nothing can overpower the flavor of ass.  I think they just put cherries on the packaging to make you think it tasted of cherries.  I almost threw up drinking the crap.

Speaking of crap; oh boy.  My Dad was kidding me about running up his water bill - after telling me he had gone to town and eaten a double-cheeseburger and a milk shake - as I drank my cup of broth.

The instructions from the Dr's office said you "could use Vaseline on your bottom" to ease irritation.  Than God for that.

Anyway, everything was fine and the Dr. found no polyps or cancer so that all good.

But, for some reason, when I ask my friends if they want to see pictures of my colon, everyone gives me a funny look and says no.

Oh well.