HOW DIRTY AM I?

I’m just a few hours post colonoscopy, and I’m wondering whether the path to enlightenment involves routine scoping of the buttocks. As I write this I am - maybe for the first time in my adult life - not full of shit! I can see clearly now (the poop is gone) and I am as peaceful as the Dalai Lama which may, admittedly, have something to do with the Versed Fentanyl involved in having your colon scoped.

Drugs are good, but I was a tough one for the nurse who sedated me. I REALLY did not want to be actively involved in watching a hose snake through my colon but I am a hopeless lightweight and didn’t want to spend the rest of the day drooling on the couch. Give me one beer and I’ll dance on your table. A little Versed and I’m asleep for days.

Sarah, this smart nurse, figured it out and I was sort of awake for the whole nine yards (or six miles, or whatever ridiculous amount of colon lies coiled within us) and once or twice, at “the corners” I felt pain and she shot me up with some stuff but here I sit, just a few hours post roto-rooter and I feel like a freaking fountain of wisdom, which clearly I’m not. As they propped me on my side (a really vulnerable position when the doc has his hose ready) I mentioned that I was going to write something smart assy on my ass to which the doc replied,

“Geez, it’s been a while since we’ve seen butt art.”

Cowboy Bob reminded me that I am building credibility towards this Buddhist chaplain thing and perhaps ass art was not in keeping with my Zen traditions but who knows? Those guys can be a hoot.

Speaking of hoot, look for my colon on You Tube because the doc videotaped the procedure since I have an unusual condition that’s not at all dangerous but completely opposite of what most people have. In my colon, I have “pseudo-polyps” go figure. This means instead of the little things bulging out, mine bulge in. Anyway, my colon might go viral so stay tuned.

But all this talk of shit and being free of it makes me wonder about my housecleaning skills or lack thereof. How do you know if your own house is dirty? I mean, I step into “cat houses” and almost faint while the humans who live there are unaffected by the eye watering pee smell. Does my house stink? (Remember that line from “Rocky” when Sylvester Stallone is trying to get his cross-eyed girlfriend from the pet store up into his apartment?) For the most part, everything at my eye level – 5’3” – seems pretty good. Don’t look up, and don’t look down. But does my house stink? I have no way of knowing.

Who are these women who clean corners, “valances,” drawers and whatnot? It just doesn’t interest me. My first husband, an Irish Catholic, told me that yes, I clean but not with love. Jesus, I thought, I gotta clean with love? Never saw him scraping week-old jelly off the counter by the way. Men of course have different standards regarding housecleaning which generally have to do with supervising. Recently, Cowboy Bob’s sister was coming to visit so Bob decided to do a walk-through and nitpick at me about stuff like why there was laundry detergent spilled by the washer. Things of that nature. Then he declared that we needed someone to come in and clean once a month which at first humiliated and then elated me. Fuck it! I don’t “love” cleaning and I hardly even “like” it. I will never be one of those women who appreciate a shiny toilet. Please do not try to “eat off my floors” as if under any circumstances that’s a desirable goal. Eating off floors is for dogs and sometimes guys.

By the way I once saw Cowboy Bob wipe the kitchen counter with a pair of underpants. He’s also been known to wash his boots in the kitchen sink and blow his nose in whatever laundry might be in the basket. And from him I’m supposed to take cleaning advice? I don’t think my house stinks but how would I know? Apparently, we all get used to the smell of our own poop, to the point where we think it doesn’t stink! Isn’t that amazing? We must filter out our own stench and often that of our kids and pets, the source of odors that could stop a truck and make a grown man weep. I think this is a Darwinian thing.

One more leap here, from Darwin to Cro-Magnon man a/k/a Cowboy Bob who listened attentively to the nurse’s discharge instructions for me today (no driving, no using the stove, no signing of contracts etc). When she asked are there any questions, he replied:

“Who’s gonna cook my dinner?”

Good thing we can’t smell our loved ones, right? Or maybe one man’s poop is another man’s roses. We can’t seem to judge our own level of stink or cleanliness. That’s what friends are for, so stop by sometime, take a whiff; and don’t hesitate to tell me – ever – when I am full of it. But it’s not today.