Flexible Inspection Equipment

Every now and then the odd, random thought drifts through my mind that maybe I'm not really an alcoholic.  I don't mean that I really question that incontrovertible fact but it has been a long time since I've had a drink and the ever-patient, always-scheming, never-resting alcoholic mind does play funny tricks on me.

Then there's this: I'm scheduled for a colonoscopy day after tomorrow.  It's a thing people are supposed to do when they get old.  It's not a thing to look forward to, however.  Trust me on this one.  The prior day is a mix of not eating anything plus the ingestion of thirty-five - that's right, Three Five - individual doses of an over-the-counter laxative.  And these are the two best parts of having your colon inspected with a flexible tube.  

I had this procedure done ten years ago.  Mercifully, a sedative is administered intravenously so the patient gets to nod off during the actual inspection.  But the thing I remember most vividly about that day is hanging out at a coffee shop afterwards as the effects of the Demerol wore off.  I was a depressant kind of drug abuser.  I had no interest in things that cranked me up - I am definitely up already, way up - preferring instead stuff that took the edge off my frenetic anxiety.  I remember thinking that afternoon: "Man, if I could just get up in the morning and shoot a tiny bit of Demerol, just the right dose, and then go about my day that would be all-right."

Intellectually, I was fine.  I was with a guy from The Program and I was never close to prowling the mean streets for Demerol, heroin, or any other opioid.  But that weird little voice way down inside spoke up that day.  I hadn't heard from him in a long time and I haven't heard from him in a while now.

Guy across the street had the procedure done not long ago and all he did was complain about how out of it he was all day.  "All I did was doze off," he said.

Definitely not one of us.