It sounds like Cologard is on the right path trying to lighten the load of what it actually is and how you interact with it. Their recent marketing effort is using a talking box to convince people to use their services to screen for rectal cancer. It even has a smile as it speaks to your inner child.
So when my physician gave me a choice between pooping in a container in the privacy of my own bathroom or having a stranger dig around with his finger inside me like he’s looking for a lost french fry, I told him I was going to need more time to think about it. I ignored all the potential "cons" and focused on finding the "pros" of this ordeal.
GOING TO A PHYSICIAN PROS:
- technically breaks the dry spell I've been going through
- Won't have to make eye contact again for years
- pretty sure that lab fees already include gratuity
POOPBUCKET CHALLENGE PROS
- done well, can be a passive income generator for my OnlyFans
- get to relive the nostalgia of my teens
- nobody will ever know about this
As awesome as they both sounded, I chose the less familiar method and more compelling atrocity instead:
The Cologard "party in a box" colon cancer screening kit.
I admit that part of my rationale was little more than, "Why not?" It had been years since the last time I intentionally pooped in a KFC bucket and I wasn't getting any younger. He carefully explained the sampling procedure with the same dexterity and tenderness usually reserved for letting someone know they need to take a shower. Luckily for me, the physician with whom I entrust my life knows as much about my non-standard sense of humor as he does about my brain. He punctuated his professional demeanor by cryptically telling me, “Now remember: just a "fun-size"/Halloween Snickers: Not the whole thing.” I chuckled and held my head high as I was feeling particularly confident that moment after a big lunch, a cup of coffee and a 45 minute wait in his lobby.
After receiving the Cologard box in the mail, it sat in my bathroom for way too long. During my visits to the potty, the box and I would stare each other down and give each other those non-verbal cues that communicate all the depraved things that we were going to do to each other: "I want you inside me; not all of you, just a fun-size Snickers amount." The box always pushed things a step too far with the graphic detail of what he was going to do once I filled him up and sent him away. Just like ordering a pizza or calling a plumber, we both knew what was going to happen between us eventually, but I was still self-conscious about whether I could even please him.
It's a strange psychology how low self-esteem in your youth can impact you for the rest of your life. Every time I went number 2 I looked at the box and felt defeated. It reminded me of those learning experiences in my formative years when I screwed up and had to deal with disappointing someone. As a youth, I rarely ever felt like any of my accomplishments were good enough. In adulthood, it didn't even matter whether the fruits of my labor were berries of either the schnoz or dingle variety. Logically, I did understand that even if I made a poo that looked like a Halloween gourd, I still wouldn't be judged for it. I can only reason that it's the guilt I carry from growing up Catholic and from judging all those gas-station-bathroom treasures that seem to run the gamut from"OMG, I think it's evolving and trying to crawl out" to, "Wow. I waited 5-minutes for you to finish and now I'm unsure if I should flush it or name it George, and pick it up and hug it and squeeze it."
At least those were all anonymous judgements. In this case my details will be on full display. It's like being the only one in the beauty pageant carrying a bouquet of roses made out of toilet paper, flashing finger nails colored with M&M's and winking with eyeshadow made from crushed Skittles. (We didn't have a lot to work with on my cell block.) Anyway, sushi and pasta makers spend years perfecting their art and here I had spent my whole life making predominantly, non-noteworthy poos. Combined with the fact that they don't allow you to just fish the best one out of the toilet bowl, whack it with a little baseball bat and send it to them makes it even more nerve wracking. For what this kit is, it has already taken a lot more out my brain than it was going to get from my butt.
I'm no artist, but with a time, skill and effort a beautiful piece of pottery can be made from a lump of clay and a spinning wheel. I didn’t have a spinning wheel but I do know how to make a fairly tight Kegel. "That should help for something," I thought, as I considered whether to make a Vision Board for inspiration.
My thoughts then turned to the lucky recipient. I had so many questions:
- How excited would they be opening this cornucopia of chemistry?
- Do they have to fight that Pavlovian urge to scream, "I'll get it!" and run to the door when FedEx arrives?
- Do they sing the Oompa Loompa song when opening the boxes?
I imagined a team of technicians in lab coats at Cologard with some holding a loupe to their eye and inspecting samples like they were gemologists. I pictured a few of them even thinking about their life choices. I couldn't disappoint them by giving them something that wasn’t as pretty and proportional as I would like to project.
It was a bit of a relief when I finally read the instructions in detail and realized that the preservative solution likely wasn’t going to preserve it like a hot dog in resin or Rasputins dong.
The preservative was mostly just to make sure it stayed fresh since nobody likes a stale one. Another few weeks went by, during which I taught myself to be more aware of my bowels, so I could actually walk slowly and intently to the bathroom to prepare for the experience versus speed-jumping on the toilet like a military hero saving his squad from a live grenade.
I had already scheduled the 6-month follow-up doctors appointment so it was poo or die time. One evening when I came home from drinks, I must’ve been feeling particularly confident. I strutted into my bathroom, opened the Cologard package (again) and started prepping. I looked in the mirror, asserted myself and said, “You Is Kind, You Is Smart, You can even poop in Tupperware.”
My feigned confidence faded quickly. You really don’t realize all the physics we take for granted in our daily lives. We instinctively know how to walk with a full cup of coffee without spilling because our brains are processing crazy amounts of data from our eyes, ears and muscles to make it happen.
And even though I’ve had the same butthole for 50 years and have a pretty good general idea of where it is, nobody had prepared me to have to use it like a sniper. It’s not until it’s time to create a stool sample that you realize your butthole has all the speed and precision of a janky claw game at Chuck E. Cheese, only instead of getting a stuffed animal for all your efforts you get a jar of poo.
So I’m sitting on a toilet, bending my aching back so far forward to try and get a good view of my butthole that I naturally start wondering how anyone could possibly auto-fellate themselves and enjoy it, and then I started to let ‘er rip. My own Butterfly Effect began to take effect. Taking a crap in a Koozie may sound effortless but the reality is different.
First, it suddenly became clear that the chopping end of my food processor needed some time on the whetstone. Ginsu, it was not. It was quite dull and wasn't even remotely close to making it on one of those “How It’s Made” episodes.
Then I was surprised and annoyed at the realization that I’ve romanticized the operation and speed of my own flaps. Years of watching Star Trek is what I blame. There was nothing precision about the doors to my bridge. Rather than the immediate action of a partition going up during a bank robbery, I was instead greeted with something more like trying to close your garage door when your remote has a weak battery.
If you’ve ever been in warm weather after ordering two-scoops on your ice cream cone, then you can imagine the rest. To my horror, I now had to clean the damn specimen container too! I wouldn’t want the recipient to think I make ugly poos AND I have poor aim. I flashed back all those times I giggled at a “Dirty Sanchez” and here I was all ready to go with no one to give it to. The only thing that could’ve made it possibly more humiliating would’ve been a strangers finger in me or a team of coworkers jumping out and yelling, "Surprise!".
I valiantly re-enacted Shakespeares famous, "out damned spot" monologue while I washed my hands and cleaned everything up. I wiped the beads of sweat from my brow and thought of “Rosie the Riveter” over my accomplishments. While still in the bathroom and feeling quite humbled, I filled out the paperwork, boxed everything up and did everything I could to avoid eye contact with the weirdo in the mirror that clearly has one of those fetishes you learn about while watching a Netflix documentary.
As I read the print on the label, I noticed that there is a time limit on getting the thing back to Cologard that I had not paid attention to. Just my luck that I’d decided to take care of this when we had a long holiday weekend. My anxiety flares and I’m slightly freaking out that I’ll get a call that my poo was stale, and they need another. Great. This would just confirm that my childhood failures with extruding PlayDoh had followed me into adulthood.
Most of us that send poo to people don’t do it often enough to require pre-printed labels. Speaking for myself, I also don't usually include my return address on it. This makes this whole experience even weirder. Thanks to the pandemic I was at least able to hide my indignities behind a mask. What I could not hide was the fact that I'm running around with an easily identifiable, large white box of my own poo. Really, the only differences between myself and a half dozen crazy people downtown is that I know my poo isn't as pretty as theirs and with any luck, I won't still be carrying this box around a few weeks from now. Armed with this knowledge I prepared to hand my box over to the friendly girl at UPS while silently hoping she mistakes it for her DoorDash delivery.
I debated myself over just how pleasant I should be and how much of a smile I should flash. I didn’t want to seem too happy and toss it over and accidentally start a game of hot potato with her. I also didn’t want to appear ashamed and make her suspicious that I'm shipping a box of misshapen turds. I just needed to be assertive and be cool and portray confidence. Easy! Just fall back on the techniques I used when giving marketing presentaions to my corporate America clients:
- pretend to make eye contact by staring at her forehead
- imagine her naked
- casually hand her my poo box
After giving it some more thought, I changed plans.
There was an un-staffed drop location a few blocks away. I didn't want to be with this box longer than necessary and I was already feeling the urge to call it "Wilson" and engage it in conversation. I figured I’d just anonymously stack it with all the other packages, but then my overthinking brain had visions of police evacuating the building and using a robot to blow-up a suspicious package. I realized that even if this did happen, it would still only be my 2nd most humiliating experience. I then proceeded to walk to the drop-box in the lower floor of the building and casually placed it among a stack of non-descript packages while pondering if any of those other boxes contained as much dignity as mine had.
While exiting the building, I walked past the main reception area and I gave an enthusiastic smile to the security guard and tried not to get on his radar. I was relieved and finally looking forward to some private time during my next session on the throne so I could attempt a reconciliation between the parts of me that I had either molested or sullied. As I pushed myself into the revolving door to exit, I felt like Ted Kaczynski, the notorious Unabomber –just maybe a little less stable and levelheaded.
The deed was done and I had finally completed a mission that Tom Cruise has only recently started to accept. I've no doubt that I must've looked like the last guy across the finish line and I really could have used some emotional support, but I refrained from immediately posting about it on Facebook and Instagram.
A couple of weeks goes by and no authorities show up at my home, so I think I’m in the clear. I make it to my doctors appointment and he has my results. I took a deep breath and prepared myself for what may come. He opened his file folder and my anxiety started to rise: "Am I about to review my poos with this man?"
Thankfully, all he had in there were a few documents so I relaxed with the knowledge that my anonymity was intact and there was no potential I'd have to pick the culprit out of a lineup while being interrogated about it. As he shared the results with me my only dismay was accepting that I wouldn't be receiving either a Michelin Star or a Medal for Bravery. But at least I didn’t have cancer.
Ultimately, after everything I put myself through to birth my Baby Ruth, I learned that I was non-cancerous and normal just like everyone else that spends hours writing about their poo and posting it online. The only dark cloud over all this was learning that I would have to do this again in 5 years. But hey: If an Olympian can prepare in 4 years, I should be able to do this as well. So with the theme from Rocky playing in the background, I think I’ve got plenty of time to work on impressing the scat fetishists at Cologard. It's going to be the prettiest, shapeliest organic thing to ever fall out of my butt. Now whether a smiling box that wants to eat my poo will make any of this easier, I don’t know but I am positive that it can’t possibly make it any worse.
