Someone got the first colonoscopy. Can you imagine? “James, we’d like to try to put a camera and a light on a hose and put it up your bum so we can see what’s going in there. How’s that sound?” James must have been like, “Do you think that’s really necessary?” 
I got my first colonoscopy when I was 24. Went straight from the newsroom to the hospital in gastric distress and before I knew it, I had six feet of garden hose stuck up my ass. After, the doctor described my manner as “combative.” Well, I'm sorry but no wonder.
I’ve had several colonoscopies since. (I wasn’t joking about Hong Kong. You can draw a straight line from that cursed tap water to the mess I made on George Clooney’s couch.) I am less resistant to them than I once was. In fact, I quite enjoy getting my plumbing serviced.
The first part of a colonoscopy is the cleanout. For the colonoscopy I had yesterday—I’m fine, thank you; it was just for fun—I was relieved to find the techniques have advanced over the years. Used to be, you had to drink four litres of Gatorade spiked with oily colon blow.
Now you just pop a few pills and take a couple of shots of high-octane cleanse. A little (or long) while later, you shit like you’re emptying an oil pan, and your bum hole ends up shining like polished shoes. It’s the same feeling you get when you power wash your deck.
My first colonoscopy, I pooped what I think was a corroded penny. I was down to the soap bubbles and heard a “plink” off the bowl. A penny! I had no recollection of eating a penny, but it found its way inside me one way or another. It spat out of me like I was a slot machine.
(That reminds me. When I was a kid, I ate a LEGO man. He soon surfaced—his smile intact, but missing his white hat. I got my dad and asked him to fish out the man. Long story short, my dad was less sentimental then; that LEGO man was buried at sea. Never found his hat.)
My most memorable cleanout came in 2007. I was 33. Age of Jesus. I had an important soccer match the evening before my colonoscopy, and I was my team’s only goalkeeper. If I timed the first and second rounds of the cleanout properly, I could thread the needle in between.
I went to the pitch in advance. I scouted it like I was in the cavalry, planning an invasion by steed. Found the toilet nearest my goal. Traced the quickest route. I practiced it the way you’d rehearse a bank heist, with a stopwatch: “Gotta be faster.” I got that trot down cold.
Afternoon of, I chased my phosphates solution with the champagne of ginger ales. My stomach started making noises like a humpback whale in distress. I erupted. When you poop like that, it’s like your spirit sees its opening and takes a log flume to freedom. Oh my God, the sweats.
By game time, everything was calm. Eerily calm. Told my teammates there was a chance they’d turn around and I’d be gone. Just my empty boots in the grass and a trail of vapour. Whistle blew. I was hungry and worried about sharting every time I moved, but I made a save or two.
Halftime, I took a precautionary trip to the loo. Devastation. An old man with a white dog went in after me, and I heard two sets of howls. Returned for the second half. We won 1-0. I got a shutout while clenched like a vice! I hadn’t felt that heroic since a certain dive trip.
The next part of a colonoscopy is the best: the drugs. They don’t put you all the way out. But there is six feet of hose banging about your guts and you can’t feel a thing. You lie there, looking at your colon on TV, and it’s like you’re watching The Magic School Bus take a tour.
Once, I could see the problem myself. It was all, Oh, look at those nice pink balloons, and then we turned the corner and it was fucking bedlam. I was like, That has to come out, doesn’t it? The doctor nodded. I had about a foot of my scorched guts removed and it saved my life.
Are you overdue for a colonoscopy? Get it done. Your health is more important than your pride. Besides, you might find something unexpected in your ol' prison wallet. A penny, perhaps. A LEGO man’s hat. Or several thousand more days with the people you love, and who love you.
