All Dignity Aside, in the Name of Humor

Now I know us bloggers are these highly intelligent, very cognitive beings. We identify ourselves by our minds. We’ll never meet; we’ll never see each other. Here, we are brains. Bodily functions..what? What are those?
Well, maybe we’re not supposed to do it, but I’m bringing a little bit of my body to this blog.
I paid a little visit to a stomach doctor recently, and met my mother for dinner right after. A grey-stone fountain trickled next to our table and waiters put one hand on their stomach and the other behind their back while taking your order in that polite, only five-star restaurant way. I ordered a filet mignon with some French sauce I cannot pronounce and then announced,
“Well, I had my first rectal exam today.”



Trying to keep this as proper of a moment as possible my mom cleared her throat and creased the napkin on her lap and said, “well, welcome to the world of women.”
I contorted my face and was about to say, “but mom—men have rectums too.”
But I held my tongue, and just looked at my mom in her crème, crewneck sweater from Ann Taylor, her Swarovski white diamond earrings and I got to thinking, I don’t think my mom and dad had the most adventurous of sex lives. And she never did have a son. Maybe she actually doesn’t know that men have rectums!

I’m only kidding. I love my mom, and I give her more credit than that. In fact I must, when I think back to when my dad had his first ever, unavoidable milestone that comes along with the senior discount packets—the colonoscopy. I remember him carrying around that giant jug of yellow liquid that was meant to “cleanse” pre-surgery and looked like a generic laundry detergent. He had to drink that thing all day and there was just no knowing when it would kick in so sometimes, mid sentence, his eyes would just about bulge out of his head and he’d suck his lips into his mouth and make a run for it.


And my mom wouldn’t laugh, wouldn’t even move or make a face to indicate anything was going on. She would just have a warm cup of tea and a back rub waiting for him when he came out of the bathroom.

So, I will take my mom’s warm welcome into “the world of women” as simply a welcome into the world of adulthood. A world in which things start to fall apart and we can no longer ignore this warm, bubbling, farting, aching, often flawed flesh that lurks beneath these immaculate minds (we are bloggers after all). Soon, there will be no dignity left. Only in the blogging world (and perhaps I have just stripped myself of that as well) Cheers!