Sometimes your mind says yes, while your body screams "Who are you kidding?"

I'm not opinionated
How many times have I heard that your body starts to fall apart when you hit middle age? The admonishment is always served with a smile; but no statement could be more serious or true. Take for instance, hemorrhoids. A minor pain in the ass in my youth (I'm sorry, I had to use that one) later became a debilitating condition as those southern vericose veins expanded like an innertube in the sun. I'm not sure if the pain of the experience was physical, emotional, or caused by repressing the urge to share the pain with a smarmy doctor. A first embarrassed office visit yielded a highly professional diagnosis: "Yep, it looks like your giving birth to a bloody cauliflower down there.". He was wrong, it was more like birthing an epileptic porcupine. That was followed by the inevitable line of questions that indirectly asked if these hemorrhoids were really speedbumps. Hell, I couldn't even shit with it, I'm wasn't about to use it as a playground. If that wasn't enough humiliation, Dr. Understanding referred me for the sub-commander treatment. Yes, a barium enema was necessary, "Just to be sure that everything was ship-shape." I later found out that he never even saw the results of the dreaded procedure. Imagine this: five days of laxatives, followed by Citrate of Magnesia (otherwise known as the lemon-lime tornado). Drink a bottle, and head to the bathroom, because five minutes later the backdraft will suck the fillings out of your teeth. Once the High Colonic Highway was clear, a trip to the proctologist was next in line. Why the hell would a proctologist have seats in his waiting room? I think that the kid before me bugged me the most. He was complaining about the taste of the barium...the little puke got to swallow his! Even the backless gown didn't spook me as much as the three nurses who appeared to be holding ropes. What I assumed were highly technical equipment turned out to be the medical equivalent of the tethers used on the Bullwinkle balloon in the Macy's parade. I can now relate to the big moose, I'm sure that I bumped my head on the ceiling somewhere near the middle of the procedure. Considering that this was all a prelude to the actual operation and recovery, I wish that I had been told that "roids" are a lot like homing pigeons. I'd love to sit and write some more, but my mind is screaming at me.