I made the mistake of mentioning to my cousin Kevin that I was feeling a little bloated, uncomfortable. It was he who suggested I get a colonic. “And a colonic is what exactly ?” I asked. “A specialist pumps water into your colon and cleans out the muck that has accumulated there. I get them weekly. You get used to it.” “Used to what exactly?” I countered but he was already off on another thought tangent. When the opportunity arose I checked out the websites of hydrotherapeutic and holistic places in my town that offered the service. Their websites listed the numerous benefits of having your bowels flushed. Everything from smoother skin and better sleep to clearer thinking, spiritual renewal and everything but the winning lottery numbers or a cure for erectile dysfunction. It wasn’t as though I thought “Oh what the hell, I have nothing scheduled for Saturday. Might as well pay a stranger to pump twelve gallons of water through my rectum in the hopes of doing what, dislodging last weeks Big Mac? I was literally on the fence until Kevin called and gave me the contact info for the place he patronizes. Was it too insensitive to request equipment that had not had contact with my cousin’s nether regions? I would rather lick the handle of a door at the local bus depot than share anything that had had invasive contact with anything below my cousin’s waist. I thought about the process, ran my hand over my protruding stomach and made the call.
Saturday morning I drove into the parking lot of the clinic. One lone Smart Car was parked there. Was Saturday not a popular day for the procedure, the idea not caught on yet with the general public or was this like getting a Botox injection at a WaWa? There was one woman operating the office. She was also my instructor, and answered the phone, stocked supplies and cleaned up the equipment once patients, mainly me, were finished. The Jill of all trades. She took me into the room where I would be emptied of all toxins, residual poisons, organic sludge and ninety five dollars. The equipment looked like one of the sleigh things Ewoks used in Star Wars. It had a seat, my legs would straddle a center console and my feet would rest on little shelves molded into the ivory colored plastic. After walking me through what to expect, she politely requested that I remove my under clothes and summon her when I was ready. She then left to attend to the insistent phone, demanding to be answered.
Once I was seated on the throne which needed to be mounted, I lay on my back and covered my lower body with the blanket provided for modesty’s sake. No sense in telling the cheery woman that I had often been unashamedly nude in public during my young adulthood. As I have said repeatedly, it was the Eighties, not the LSD. I buzzed the attendant and she hurried back powered by enthusiasm as though the immanent procedure would be the most fun I had ever had. She was practically envious, revealed that she gets a colonic done weekly and began to demonstrate the various parts of the event pointing her two hands like a flight attendant. ” THIS IS WHERE THE WATER COMES FROM. IT IS HEATED TO A COMFORTABLE 104 DEGREES. WE MONITOR IT CLOSELY BECAUSE WE HAVE HEARD OF SITUATIONS WHERE THERE WAS A GLITCH AND THE WATER BECAME SUPER HOT BUT THAT CAN’T HAPPEN HERE!” Big smile. ‘YOU WILL CONTROL THE WATER FLOW AND THERE IS A FLUSHING MECHANISM NEXT TO YOUR RIGHT HAND TO MOVE ALONG MORE SUBSTANTIAL AMOUNTS OF POO” Another big smile. Even my mother called it shit in front of us when we were kids. But poo it certainly was. ” NOW THIS IS IMPORTANT. HERE IS THE TUBE THAT WILL BE PENETRATING YOUR ANUS….” I stopped listening at her use of the word “penetrating”. What my grammar school teachers would have referred to as a strong verb. A real ‘action’ verb, a ten point verb. She could have said ‘enter’ or ‘slide into’. Penetrate is real Gestapo talk, an action that made water boarding sound like surfing. ” YOU WILL SLIDE DOWN THE INCLINE UNTIL YOU FEEL THE TUBE. THEN POSITION YOURSELF FOR PENETRATION” that word again “YOU WILL ASSIST THE TUBE IN ENTERING YOUR ANUS APPROXIMATELY AN INCH AND A HALF. YOU WILL FEEL IT.’ I looked at the ten remaining inches of plastic pipe and thought “Goddamn right you’ll feel it” My nearly euphoric guide left me alone to mate with the tube. Mercifully, she had lubed its tip. Gingerly, I inched my way toward the clear plastic pipe, anticipating impact, like a docking maneuver at the Space Station… “Houston I am definitely not ready!!!” This was as close to experiencing a woman’s gynecological exam as any man could get, my feet flat on molded plastic stirrups and inching toward “Touchdown”. Once I had eased myself onto what I thought might be two inches, the butt was never designed to measure anything, I summoned my cheerful accomplice to return. She congratulated me on following the instructions so well, lowered the lights and promised to return in an hour. A mirror had been set up in such a way that we patients could observe what was exiting us. I know some Alpha Males like to watch their surgeries in real time, I was contented to watch the video loop of dolphins frolicking in the surf and waves racing over sandy beaches. Directly in front of me was a sign offering “RECTAL OZONE TREATMENTS”. Just $35. I wondered if Kevin was into that too? By the way it doesn’t matter what you wear to a colonic. You’re going to take at least half of it off.