Old People Shit: Colonoscopies

 

Smile for the camera!

Yes, it’s time for another shitty post. One day I hope to be regular…about my posting schedule, that is.  For now, you’ll just have to enjoy them when I manage to squeeze one out.

Colonoscopies are a fun thing you get to do when you’re older. And now you don’t even have to wait as long as you used to because more young people are presenting with colon cancer. Eek. Seems like the earth itself is not the only place climate change is happening. Fifty used to be the age screenings started, and now it’s forty-five. I envision a day where twenty-one will make you a legal adult and your first colonoscopy will eclipse the first legal drink as your rite of passage.

Matt and I are both frequent flyers on the Up The Butt Airlines. He’s had aggressive polyps that have been invading his space since before age fifty, and I have a family history, so I’m on the five-year plan. And my number came up in 2020. Trust me when I say that was one year I REALLY didn’t want someone poking around up there looking for shit, because I figured that would be the year they would find something. I was secretly hoping for the phone charger that had gone missing, but I was honestly expecting much worse.

Those who have had it done know...the procedure is nothing because you’re asleep, but the leadup is where all the magic happens.

First you go to the pharmacy for the the Shit Kit, aka prep kit, which is some kind of magic liquid that tastes horrible going down and transforms to boiling lava when it hits your innards. Sometimes it’ll have a fun name, like GoLytely. Which is adorable because, trust me, there’s nothing lightly about how you’re gonna go.

Liar, liar, pants (literally) on fire.

I was given split-dose prep, which means drinking half and going through hell the night before and then doing it again four hours before the procedure.

The day before the test, you’ll fast except for clear liquids.

*Pro tip from your old aunt Claudia—fuck the prep instructions, vodka IS a clear liquid.

Black coffee is a clear liquid but vodka isn't?
I call bullshit.

Midway through starving yourself, you take two laxative tablets to prime the pump. Late in the afternoon, you start drinking the prep solution, which is essentially 2 liters of seawater with a packet of fake citrus flavor mixed in to make it taste like sickenly-sweet seawater. You drink 8 ounces of that swill every 15 minutes until it’s gone, while also drinking extra water to stay hydrated and to ensure maximum bloating and discomfort while you wait for the lava to do its thing.

About this time, some people start feeling pukey. And if you throw up the prep, it’s game over, so here’s another pro tip; visit your dispensary for some CannaMelts--edibles that dissolve under your tongue. Take one and it will help settle your stomach and the buzz will distract you a little from the horrors you’re experiencing.

I did the research for you. You’re welcome.

If you think drinking the seawater is bad, wait until it transforms to boiling lava and you’ve sprayed it out the other end for hours. Basically, it feels like you’ve shotgunned a giant drum of Drano and then parked yourself bare-assed on the mouth of an active volcano. And since that rhymes so nicely, let’s just call the whole process the Drano Volcano.

Round one goes on for awhile, and just when it tapers off and you think your butthole might not spontaneously combust after all, you mix up round two and start all over again.

Partway through round one, I began to regret making fun of people who hoarded toilet paper during the pandemic, because I was starting to see the need.

About an hour into round two, I started wondering if fire extinguisher foam would interfere with my test results. Because by then the Drano Volcano had ignited the Great Ass Fire of 2020, and it was raging.

And by the time I got to the hospital for my procedure the next morning, I could barely waddle and had smoke and sparks shooting out my tailpipe.

Miraculously, after the test the doctor came in and said, “Well, you're good, we didn’t find anything. But we did have to extinguish you a couple times and some pesky spot-fires kept cropping up in your bush. Here’s some burn cream in case you need it.”

Note for next time…fire extinguisher foam is O.K.

I never did find my damn phone charger.

APB out on this guy. White male, approx. 5', looks a bit snaky.

Old People Shit: Menopause, Being Childless, and PFPT

Hi again! Did you miss the old people shit? Fear not, it's the gift that keeps on giving! 

Last time I talked about menopause and weight gain. Another charming side effect of menopause is that, when the estrogen levels go down the likelihood that you’ll pee when you sneeze goes way up.

I didn't invent the word, but I like it.

Since I don’t have kids, I thought I might get lucky and stay firm down there. Turns out Mother Nature doesn’t seem to care much for non-breeders. So even though I never bowled down that particular alley and loosened things up, she decided I wasn’t going to get a pass after all. I did my Kegels like a good doobie, to try and keep things in shape, but it wasn’t enough, so I finally talked to my doctor and she sent me for pelvic floor physical therapy.

Now, if you’re unfamiliar with pelvic floor physical therapy--but you have an image in your head right now--you’re probably on the right track.

I was led into a small room, the door was closed, and I was directed to undress from the waist down and lie down on the table. And yes, the table had stirrups. And yes, my feet went into them. Then a young woman came in snapping on rubber gloves, and she began to put me through my paces. I felt like a finger puppet in a children’s show from hell. This happened three times a week for several weeks.

Wrong kind of stirrups, but the position looks right.

I’m happy to report that after completing my regimen I could sneeze without peeing (most of the time), and I could also walk down the middle of a busy road during rush hour pantsless because that’s how much personal dignity I had left. 

I didn’t want kids for a variety of reasons, so it just never happened. Every once in awhile, if I get a pang of “what if”, all I have to do is turn on Dr. Fuckin’ Phil and see some psycho kid cornering their parents in the bedroom with a butcher knife, or a teenager running wild on the streets drinking, smoking, snorting, popping and screwing everything in sight, and my poor uterus that hung its Gone Out of Business sign a decade ago still tries to crawl up under my ribcage and hide. I swear if I was still fertile, my tubes would tie themselves.

The Glass Slipper

Cinderella tried on the glass slipper this week, and it fit perfectly!

In this story, I am Cinderella. The glass slipper is actually a boat named Dorothy at Retro Boat Rentals in Saugatuck, Michigan, which is one of our favorite summer getaway destinations. 

Retro Boat Rentals has a variety of boats; pontoons, Duffy boats, donut boats, and several small jet age 1950s-60s fiberglass boats. Anyone who knows me and my love of anything Midcentury Modern with fins need not ask what style of boat Dorothy is.

Dorothy is a 15' Glass Slipper, a rare boat made by Marlin Marine of Hillsdale, Michigan in 1958 and '59. It was designed to look like a Ford Thunderbird from the '50s with fins, headlights, fake jet air intakes, fake jet exhausts, bucket seats, T-Bird style dash, and other automotive styling cues. The employee at Retro Boats told us only about 11 were ever made. An article I found online said around 14 were manufactured in 1958, and only 5 in '59. Dorothy is one of the rare '59s. 

According to the article, the headlights on the '58s caused a bit of controversy; a Coast Guard official was said to have told the designer "we don't want to see those things out on the water". To which the designer basically responded "hold my beer", and came back in '59 with dual headlights on each side.  

Retro Boats has kept the original outboard motors and dashboards on their boats, but converted them to electric, which makes for easy operation and a quiet ride. The Kalamazoo River is a no-wake zone, so they are meant to top out at about 4 mph. They even installed a stop on the throttle so you can't really open 'er up even if you wanted to. With the throttle open as far as it would go, we achieved a maximum speed of 4.7 mph. And when we hit a patch of weeds and got briefly entangled, that dropped to about 1 mph! 

I felt right at home in Dorothy, like I had, well, put on the glass slipper and it fit perfectly. What I wouldn't give for my own Dorothy to putt up and down the Grand River in! 

Why the Blog? THIS is Why!

So I can say shit without stepping in it.

I got thrown in Facebook jail recently. It was just an overnight in the drunk tank followed by an electronic tether. “Restrictions on my account” is how they put it. I’m sure no one else here has experienced this…right? 🙄

It’s happened twice now, and for saying some pretty innocuous stuff, IMHO.

The first time it happened, I didn’t even know for several days. I was just happily reading and posting away like usual, and I went into my profile for some reason, and saw a red banner that said “Account Restricted”. I’m like “what the fuck?” And I figured, well, maybe Facebook finally had enough of me saying fuck and I’d used up however many fucks Uncle Zuck allows without realizing I’d crossed that line.

There were three restrictions, all originating from the same date in late March, and all weirdly random once I saw why I'd been dinged.

I couldn’t go live for 30 days.

I couldn’t advertise for 30 days.

Group posts would be moved lower in feeds for 30 days.

These are all things I do so infrequently, I was down to maybe 25 days by the time I even became aware.

After each restriction, there was a “see why” button. So I clicked and sawed why.

Like I said, I figured I’d finally said fuck one too many times and crossed a line.

Nope. Amazing, I know, but that wasn’t it.

A friend did a remodeling project and posted before and after photos and I liked what he’d done, so I commented on it. And I used a word in the comment that Facebook didn’t think I should be using.

Now why, since the offensive word was in a comment to a friend, was I still allowed to comment to friends, and post personal stuff, but not to, say…advertise? Since Facebook would get revenue from that and it has nothing whatsoever to do with comments on personal posts, I still can’t figure that one out. It would take precious dollars from them. I do have a small business page, and I co-admin a couple of others, and I have to say… it was kind of refreshing not to keep getting those stupid notifications: “Your post is doing well, why don’t you boost it?” That makes no sense, does it? If my post is already doing well, why would I need to boost it? Wouldn’t it be better to boost one that isn't doing so well? Like, “That post you made is lying there like a limp schlong—maybe you should give it a boost, slap it around a little and see if you can bring it to life”.

But back to the topic.

What I said in my comment was: “Nice work! Be careful handy dude, or I might kidnap you and bring you over here to do ours!”

Apparently, Facebook thought I was threatening my friend with a criminal act. And I do get it, considering the times we live in, but, geez…context, please?

Turns out I didn’t have it so bad after all. I learned later on that a friend had an experience with the same word used in the same sort of context, only she ended up with a complete suspension from Facebook AND Messenger for 30 days—and then had her entire account deleted, never to be seen again. Everything she had--all of her photos, posts, memories, everything--gone over one stupid word used in a perfectly innocent context. 

Yikes, WTF, and holy screaming shitballs!

The day after I became aware of my account restrictions, I saw something I wanted to photograph and post. So I took the picture and started to post it, and stopped myself when I typed “I shot this picture”; a perfectly legit way to describe taking a photo, but I figured it would be another one of those words. So instead, I was careful to say “I took this picture”, so I didn’t end up deeper in the shit. Which is apparently a fine word to use, but I’m guessing the nearly identical one with a different vowel isn’t.

For photographer friends, you might want to consider this a PSA. Avoid that word, and any variations on it.

I did a standup comedy open mic shortly after my unfortunate incident, and I didn’t tell many friends I was doing it. I wasn’t sure how it would go, and if it went sideways, I didn’t want to bomb in front of a bunch of people I know, and maybe have someone post that and get in trouble. And if by some miniscule chance I killed on my first try, I certainly didn’t want my friends to post that either and end up in the Facebook clink.

The most recent situation was similar to the first one, only more ridiculous yet and with a slightly different set of restrictions.

Someone I know made homemade cheesecakes for a family outing and posted the flavors she had made. My comment to her was “I will knock you down for a piece of caramel pecan!” Apparently Facebook again decided I was threatening someone with violence; and even the schoolyard bully type will get you slapped. This time, I got a complete 24-hour suspension from posting or commenting, a 48-hour restriction from posting in groups, and for the next 30 days my group posts would be moved lower in feeds (whatever the fuck that actually means).

Juliet. Foxtrot. Charlie. 🤦

So my point is that apparently it’s okay to use ALL the words on Facebook that George Carlin told us we couldn’t say on TV back in the ‘70s, and deploy them at will, but there are others that are to be avoided. Here's what I hope is a helpful list:

KIDNAP
HOSTAGE
KILL
SLAY
MURDER
STAB
SHOOT/SHOT
HANG
BOMB
KNOCK DOWN
BEAT

I’m sure there are more. I’m equally confident that I will step in it again at some point.

So curse away, my foulmouthed friends--just make sure you post “fuck” and not “F Bomb”.