Raw, but c*nsored blabbing and blogging of a young journalista
and local news producer in Southern New England.
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Wednesday, August 18, 2004

It all began with AbFab

What is colonic irrigation?

Finally, we have the answer.

Let me explain.

Ages ago at my last station I was writing for the morning show next to one of the morning anchors, and we were watching probably Conan O'Brien in the background.

Whoever the guest was (it was a male guest who, obviously, would be a good candidate for being a metrosexual) he was talking about colonic irrigation.

Either the anchor asked me "WHAT are they talking about?" or I simply noted, "I think they're talking about colonic irrigation."

What's that? asked the anchor. I offered up the best of my knowledge, which came from a quote from Absolutely Fabulous, quoted here in an amalgam from tv-dvds.net and paulbot.tripod.com:

Saffron Mum, you've absolved yourself of responsibility. You live from self-induced crisis to self-induced crisis. Somebody chooses what you wear, someone does your brain, someone tells you what to eat, and, three times a week, someone sticks a hose up your bum and flushes it all out of you.
Edina It's called colonic irrigation, darling, and it's not to be sniffed at.
Saffron Why can't you just go to the toilet like normal people?
Edina Is that what you really want me to be? Normal? Some boring, normal, old toilet-goer? ‘Where's mummy?’ ‘She's on the toilet.’ ‘But I want to go somewhere exciting and meet interesting people.’ ‘She can't take you ... she's on the toilet.’  Why, anybody can go to the toilet, darling, these days.
Saffron Well, they obviously haven't seen YOU drunk.

So I apparently explained that colonic irrigation consists of sticking a hose into the anus so that whatever's in the colon can be pumped out.

Which is relatively correct. I didn't know for sure at the time, but in any event I probably made a fool of myself saying it anyway (understand, this is the same man I was talking to when I found out I really don't know where the hell Liverpool is, though I consider myself an Anglophile. He's a Beatles fan, and yet he sure as hell didn't tell me).

Today the following occurred to me: Well, what the heck is the difference between colonic irrigation and an enema? And does "irrigation", as in an irrigation ditch, mean having water flow through, or does it mean digging, as in the ditch?

Colonic-Irrigation.Info finally set me straight; see the link above. It appears that an enema is less intrusive and less powerful than colonic irrigation, which seems to most often be done by a machine.

All this talk makes most of us a little edgy doesn't it? It does make me wonder just WHAT you'd have either of these treatments done for. Does it stave off colon cancer? Or does it just make your bowels feel cleaner, supposedly? And how necessary is that? Aren't we (or WHY aren't we) just supposed to evacuate our waste under our own power like people have been doing for thousands of years?

Labels: Originally published

... Scribbled by Bill T ... 8/18/2004 10:43:00 AM ... Email this entry ...
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