Appointment Pooping

 NOTE: If you do not want to read about my healthy bowel movement, well too late you just did.

I recently became you-better-get-a-colonoscopy-years-old. So after giving the doctor a Midwest response of yeah no, she suggested Cologuard(R).

Have you seen the happy little commercials of the anthropomorphized friendly box that tells you how simple it is to send away a sample to screen for colon cancer. Well, I was under the mistaken impression that the sample was just a swipe, a schmear if you will, of sample. 

NO. That happy little Cologuard box is meant to contain a little crock of your shit. A. Crock. Of. Shit. At least if you can get the appointment pooping right. 

Ladies, maybe I am alone in this. But I don't make appointments to shit. Do you? Or do you just take a seat and whatever happens, happens. 

In order to make the Cologuard process work correctly you have to 

1. have to shit 

2. open the crock 

3. get the plastic doo-hicky that keeps the crock up near the source situated under the seat

4. have time to immediately take this crock of shit to a UPS store (in a box)

So today was the day. I felt step #1 coming on in the form of a #2. So I got out the 26-PAGE instruction booklet. Have you ever read 26 pages of instructions while you are actively needing to get through steps #1-3 of a #2?

Oh, and ladies, I forgot to mention, you aren't allowed to pee in the crock. It is to be a crock exclusively of shit.

So I read the instructions, got the crock situated to collect and sat down. Unlike the time I had trouble producing even a teaspoon of lady urine in the Kroger bathroom, today I provided a very healthy sample.  It was probably too much sample. And some pee got in. How do you keep it out? So anyway, this probably means I have cancer, or perhaps I did until I emptied it all into this crock.

Can we just pause for a moment of silence for the poor people (hopefully well compensated) who have to open these literal crocks of shit that have been in transit for a few days.

After referring to the second instruction booklet (only 4 pages) on shipping, I headed out to the hardware store in town that handles UPS pick-ups. 

On my way out, my Husband, who was oddly uninterested in hearing about my sample while he ate his lunch, said "What are you going to tell them is inside?" Husband, who regularly ships pig semen across the country via UPS, knew that they often asked that question. 

I contemplated just skipping the whole thing, but then I thought that taking this box to the hardware store was the simplest way I knew to get rid of this crock of shit. And also, these people had heard my husband answer pig semen every time he handed over a box, so could this really be worse?

Miraculously, I did not see anyone I knew as I carried in my box. And even more miraculously, no content questions were asked. 

So to anyone I've traumatized, with our regular shipping of pig semen and our irregular shipping of shit samples (hopefully not TOO irregular), I apologize. To make it up to you, I will send over a box of chocolates via UPS. Don't worry if they seem melted.

UPDATE: The results are in. My healthy sample was a healthy sample! Preventative medicine FTW.

EPILOGUE: I entered this in the prestigious Erma Bombeck writing competition and received the following feedback: 

I am not sure how the swearing will play with judges beyond me, but I think your storytelling and humor is masterful! The end made me chortle.