When one approaches the age of 50, there are a number of opportunities that open up. The most obvious is that you can register for AARP, the old people club. Although, they really don’t have an age limit, (once, a 16-year-old joined) AARP allows you to eat for 10% off at 4 p.m. at some of the finest Country Buffets in the world, and possibly also rent a car for less than $500 a day.
I am two months away from my 50th birthday. It has started to feel like more of an occasion, because of the types of junk mail I’m getting and the types of Facebook ads I’m seeing. Suddenly my ads aren’t for bars and clubs in town, but rather for ointments and retirement villages. I’m seeing a lot of golf and vacation destinations even though I’m at least 60 years away from retiring. As the digital algorithms continue to anticipate my wants and needs, this has also carried over into my health system.
I got an email the other day that said I had a special message from my doctor. Logging into my super secret medical portal, I was excited to open it up. Maybe it was that they had finally recategorized the BMI index and I am suddenly considered “thin.” Maybe they have finally found a cure for my bunion on my left foot. But no. The topic of the email in question was about my butthole. COLON CANCER SCREENING NEEDED. Well, that’s rude. Not even a mention of how I only gained 15 pounds during the pandemic.
Happy birthday to me, indeed. My doctor suddenly has a special interest in my backside, and not because I’m in the running for the Kim Kardashian Man Of the Year award. Nope. They want to screen for colon cancer, and the best way to a man’s colon is through his anus.
But, she did give me two choices. The first, appealing as it might sound, was to send a go pro camera into my pooper shooter to look for cancerous polyps. Wow. I mean, not sure how it could get better from there. But option two won me over: poop in a box.
No. This isn’t an SNL skit. There is a company. They send you a box. You poop in it. You send it back to them via the mail, and they tell you if you have cancer. How can a society so divided against itself also offer you the opportunity to crap in the mail? Oh you better believe I chose option B. Turning 50 has never looked so fun.
Forget about the old saying “here’s mud in your eye.” It needs to be updated to “here’s my poo in your mailbox!”
(Dear reader: I need your help. I am approaching 500 columns for The Landmark, and I’d like to hear from you on your favorites. Not sure what I’ll do to commemorate the event, but it will include re-publishing some of the best. If you have one or two of these 500 that stand out, can you email me at chris@page3network.com and let me know? Just the email will be fine. Please don’t poop in a box and send it to me)