Survival Lesson #54: What To Do During a Power Outage in the Middle of your Colonic

So you're laying there, on the funny doctor's table with your legs comfortably bent and a pillow under your neck. Your head is turned down and toward the left so you can see the drainage tube and all the yuckiness it carries away from your bod. You are sitting in a disturbing puddle of water (and unfortunately, fecal matter). The tube of death is inserted into your rectum, and you are unable to feel like a normal person anymore because, well, normal people avoid situations like these and here you are paying someone to do it to you.

A desktop fountain runs gaily across the room. The radio is on, reminding you of what people on the outside are doing while you are taking an extended dump and ridding your body of compacted, toxic doo doo. The lights are dim. The machine is humming.

And then the power goes out.

You frantically turn the knobs that regulate water flow. Who can guarantee that when the power comes back on, it won't accidentally send a blast of water all the way through your intestines and out your mouth? No one, that's who. So the knobs go to "off" and the silence is deafening.

The tube is still in there, you know. In your bottom.

You're kind of afraid to pull it out. It took some effort to get in, and once it's out, the cleanup must begin, so you figure that you might as well wait it out and ignore it as best you can. There is no casual return to Tube Town.

The fluorescent lights flicker. The machine sputters. Hope rises in your chest. And then everything goes black again. Why isn't your trusty hydrotherapist coming in to see how you are? You don't know. Is that snickering you hear?

Try and think back to the first time you kissed a boy, or the morning after the first time you did it. Those are happy memories. Go back there, where the air was clean and bright, and the taste of a hamburger lights up your tastebuds. Yeah, go there. And while you're at it, think about when you graduated college and everyone went out for dinner afterwards, or that road trip you took with someone you had a crush on. What about your first paycheck, first homecoming dance dress, or when you sold out an entire movie theater with a film festival you put on? Think of those things. Not being in the dark, with a scary tall machine looming over you, and an unsettling presence in your behind.

Begin to count the dots on the ceiling. Plan out the rest of your day. Examine your manicure. Slowly try to relax all the muscles in your face, one by one. Hum an old spiritual, preferably "Old Man River." Try and recite as many lines as you can from The BIg Lebowski, or maybe Maid to Order starring Ally Sheedy. Try and put a finger on why Pomeranians look better in little purses than Chihuahuas do. Have a fake conversation with the Dalai Lama. Or, recount an actual one.

Suddenly, the lights come on. The machine whirs to life and you know you can turn the water on. You take your time, because you know that the minute your intestines start filling with that 99.9% pure water, life will get all crampy and icky again. And for a brief, shining moment, you were having a wonderful time.

Sigh. g