I tried to write something yesterday, but my eyes were filled with tears of joy from that beautiful wedding. Some people might not give a shit (cold, heartless people), but for me, hey, it’s not every day that complete strangers get married, is it? OK, well, yeah, I guess it is. But this was a special day for a kid who dressed up like a Nazi for a costume party 13 years ago (hey, kids do dumb shit – I think we can let him off the hook for that one; I only thank sweet baby Jeebus nobody was following me around with cameras when I was 20 years old. Or yesterday, for that matter. It’s not as if I feel sorry for the uber-privileged aristocracy, but it still must have sucked to grow up with photographers up your ass. Speaking of cameras up your ass….

Friday was my much anticipated colonoscopy day, and while I’m not really one to expect the best out of life (some might say I’m pessimistic, I prefer to think of it as being realistic – and not stupid), I have to say that it was even worse than I expected. Not the thing itself, that was fine (as far as I know). I mean, they gave me some milk of the poppy and I had about enough time to realize the light were going out and the next thing I knew I woke up feeling like somebody’s prison bitch.

No, the part that I think I’m justified in describing as “horrible” was the “bowel prep.” I don’t eat a whole lot these days to begin with and on Thursday I wasn’t supposed to eat anything. Anything resembling food, that it. So I drank clear liquids (ironically, beer would have qualified had I not given that up, though I’m pretty glad I didn’t start Friday off with a hangover). After a day of nothing but liquid (and lime Jello), I was pretty much clean a whistle (really – I was whistling as I walked, and I wasn’t even wearing corduroys) already. I didn’t want to ingest any processed sugar so I stuck with all sugar free substances (not crazy about eating whatever chemical it is they put in sugar free shit these days either but you gotta pick your poison, right?). By that afternoon, the resultant lack of calories left me with blurred vision and feeling pretty terrible (or it was water poisoning – I drank a lot of goddamn liquid).

And then it was time for round one. I was supposed to start at 4 PM, but I had to wait a few minutes because I really wasn’t doing well, but eventually I toughed it out and sucked down a bottle of what tasted like watered down cherry cough syrup and (over the next hour) 48 ounces of water.

Now, I don’t have a lot of talents in life, but taking a shit is something I’ve generally been pretty good at. I mean, I got my phone, I got my laptop – I got Netflix, Hulu, YouTubeTV, a network TV tuner, Google Books, Google Music, electronic versions of the past year or so of Sky and Telescope magazine (thanks to the Girl Scouts of Juneau Alaska), and five spare rolls of toilet paper, so I was prepared to settle in for a quiet evening of contemplation.

I’ll spare you the details, but let’s just day what ensued was neither satisfying nor relaxing. And not exactly conducive to the “clean, fresh” feeling those of us fortunate enough to not be homeless have come to expect in life. And that was just round one.

I was supposed to start round two at 10 PM, with no food or water after midnight (despite no eating all day, that, at least was NOT a problem). As I may have mentioned, I’m on old man hours these days, and the only time I see ten o’clock at night these days is when I get up to take a piss (and NOT, might I just say, out my ass). Even the dogs went to bed without me (hey, thanks for the support there kids). Drinking isn’t normally difficult for me, but getting that additional quart and a half of water down was a real struggle. Especially since I just wanted to get it over with so I could go to sleep.

Hah!

Let’s just say there wasn’t a lot of sleeping going on that night – and not in a good way. Anything substantive was long (long) gone, but it’s difficult to reason with your colon (don’t bother trying to argue – you’ll lose). By the time I was ready to “get up” the next morning, two things were clear – all I wanted in life was for this to be over, and I was never – NEVER – gonna let myself be talked into doing this again. Assuming I didn’t have some horrible disease, of course – and maybe not even then.

I won’t keep you in suspense any longer – I don’t have cancer or polyps or anything else (they did find a set of keys I lost about 10 years ago, so that was cool). The doc also told me that because I’m thin, all my guts are packed into a small space, meaning, apparently that my colon like a good mystery novel – full of twists and turns. Every time he thought he was at the end of the line, around another corner he went. He said I might be sore because he had them smoosh me down flat to try and straighten things out a bit. I wasn’t sore, but it would certainly make for an interesting picture – a couple people trying to flatten me out while I lay there with a big black garden hose ten feet up my ass.

Again, grateful to have not been born a prince.

Anyhow, I wasted two days of my life and a sizable amount of money to find out what I already knew. Just to be “sure.” The doc said I’m good to go for 10 years. Yeah, right. If I’m still alive in ten years, I won’t be wasting time doing this. Hopefully I’ll be retired to some place warm, spending my final years attempting to drink myself to death.

Friday was a beautiful day, otherwise, and although they told me not to drive or operate machinery, I was feeling pretty good and figured I’d get the grass cut. Until I got home, that is. Whether it was the lack of sleep or the residual effects from the propofol, or maybe just being dehydrated, I don’t know, but I had all the pain of terrible hangover with none of the joy from the night before. I managed some weed whacking, but that was about it. Mostly I hung out on the front lawn with the dogs.

Of course it rained all day yesterday and appears to doing the same thing today. So the grass is about ten feet high now and I don’t know when I’ll be able to cut it.

But, hey, at least I’m not pissing out my ass, so I’ll call it a good day.