Just when you think my life couldn't get any better....

...I go and schedule a medical procedure.

You know which one. The one you're supposed to have when you turn 50. The one I have already canceled once. The one that Katie Couric perkily endured on national television.

I do not want to do this. I do not think there is anything wrong with my plumbing, and I think this is silly. And uncomfortable. And .... well ... OK, you want to know my real objection to this?

I do not think I can go all day without eating.

There. I said it. I don't think I can live for 24 hours on strained chicken soup and Jell-O. Dammit, I need to chew!

My doctor, who is about 14 years old and blonde (but otherwise wonderful), looked at me when I explained this to her, and she said, "Well, you can chew gum."

This is not a consolation. Gum will not do it. Thirty-six years from now, when she has to have this procedure, she will understand that.

Doug tried to make me feel better. He had to have this at 40, because there is colon cancer in his family. (Though none in Doug, thank God.)

"It's easy," he said. "The drugs make you all goofy and chatty, and then you go in a room with a bunch of other people, and fart. It's just like ice fishing."

Oooooooooh I really do not want to do this....