mmmmm. . .beans

you know, because i haven't posted in awhile, and it appears that i have some readers again, i've decided to throw out some oddly bizzare content that will hopefully continue to spur some conversation. some have heard this story, others haven't, but sometimes you must share your experience with the world, so that they may laugh, cry, or even find some insight into their own troubled lives. but here it is, the story of

HOW I HAD TO HARVEST MY OWN POOP:

so as some know, my fellow cohorts and i decided to travel up to the foss's lovely cabin near grand rapids minnesota. it was a lovely trip filled with beer drinking and sun soaking and some hardcore competition with the bean bags. but this is simply a side note, for the drama unfolded when i returned home.

upon the very first evening of returning, i was at work at the fish's lovely bakery when i suddenly felt a disconcerting rumble in my tummy. hmm, i thought, what could this be about. maybe just some indigestion from the white castle on the ride home. so i ignored the feeling for as long as i could, which was about two minutes. at the point whatever was in me was trying to bulldoze its way out of my ass, so i relieved myself to the restroom for a rather graphic episode upon the throne. this was just the beginning to my wonderful escapade through three weeks of sickness.

for the next week i suffered through consistently unpleasant bowel movements and a rather high fever. bah, i thought, for a man of my stature, this is simply a little discomfort. but it finally got the best of me. the diarrhea had subsided but the fever continued to rage and i was starting to get night sweats. this to me seemed like a sign that i should visit the doctor.

my mother quickly got on the phone with family medicine and scheduled me for a little check up. during this visit i described all symptoms of my illness, and the doctor informed me he might have an idea what could be causing this. he believed i had a gastrointestinal infection by the name of giardia. curious as i was, i inquired "what exactly is this giardia you speak of, and how might we find if this is truly the cause of my discomfort?" the doctor responded with a long line of medical jargon and blah blah blah but the only words that struck a chord with me were "stool samples."

. . . . . . . . . . . .

oh, collect my poop you say? well what does this entail? well i'll tell you what this entails children. I was given a group of collection kits for which to "collect my stool." and no, one sample is simply not enough. we need three just to make sure. that's right, three days of dreading having to take a poop.

well upon returning home, i managed to hold out the first day. i don't have to poop i told myself, the collection can wait until the morrow. but the next day came too quickly, and i was faced with the daunting and utterly disgusting task of making collection number one.

here is the list of tools i was to use for this little misadventure. first of all, a collection basket. this was simply a little floppy piece of cardboard with tape on the sides and a neat little paper "bowl" in the middle. the poop cannot touch the water to prevent contamination, therefore i must poop in this little paper bowl and let the poop be exposed to open air for mineself to smell while collecting. i wasn't fortunate enough to have a gas mask for this. next was the vial with which i would return the stool to the doctor. this was a little plastic combination contraption for which to scoop a small sample of poop and hold it in preservatives until they reach their final testing place. when i unscrewed the cap to this vial, i found connected to the inside of the cap a more sinister looking version of a spork. this, i suppose, was because fecal matter can have somewhat of a resistant consistency. the bad thing about this, was it was small, about two inches long. meaning i'd have to get my hand about two inches from my own poop.

by now i was just thinking this to be some giant cynical joke for the doctors, but i proceeded anyway. now, they make toilets pretty big for a reason, it's not like people can drop their business on a dime. it's a slong sloppy process and it's going to fall where it wants. which makes me question who invented the little catcher, because the bowl was about 3 inches wide. squeeze gently i thought, and pray for a favorable bounce. my prayers went unanswered. . . . for when i drew in a deep breath and turned around to see what i had to work with, it was not what i'd hoped for. the paper basket was connected to the cardboard by four little knotches with which you broke to release the paper and excrement into the toilet. well mr. hanky had decided to lay his head down right on one of the knotches. shit, how do a work around this? what commenced was an awkward flicking battle with the poop spork to get the paper to break. and it finally worked.

since you get the picture of this whole thing, i don't feel the need to describe the events of day two and three. besides, i had greatly honed my poop collecting skills at that point, so both days went without much incidence. finally, i thought, the doctors can diagnose me. i brought my 3 samples complete in discrete brown paper bag to the doctor and went home to await further news.

after waiting the some odd hours described in my poop collecting pamphlet, i called the poop collection hotline where i was treated to some bittersweet news. "we have the results from your samples and they are all negative." great i thought, no diseases. . . .but wait. . . .i just collected poop for 3 days for no damn reason. fuck. fuckin doctors, i was pretty sure at this point that it all was just a dirty little joke for their amusement. and then i realized i still felt like shit, still had a fever too. guess i'll just continue to be sick.

it was at this point that week 2 of disease spree had ended, but week 3 began with a hellacious sore throat and another trip to the doctor. strep test they say, that's what it looks like. . . . . wrong. they sure pay these guys a lot of money to fuck up twice and let me suffer for 3 weeks. i'm never going to the doctor again.