What Have You Done Lately?

In Toastmasters, the public speaking group I belong to, we have a regular feature of our meetings called “Table Topics.” One person thinks of questions in advance to ask to club members. This teaches impromptu speaking, something I am notoriously bad at.

On Thursday night at our meeting, the Table Topics leader asked “What’s the latest thing you have done for the first time?”

I prayed that she would not call on me, because I could think of only one thing, and there was no way I was going to say it. But because I was so freaked out, it was the ONLY thing I could think of.

Thankfully she passed me by.

I pooped in a box. That was my new thing.

It’s not some kinky practice. I just didn’t want to get another colonoscopy, so the alternative was the Cologuard test. The company sends you a kit that consists of a small bucket with a tight-fitting lid, a bracket for your toilet, a swab that goes in a vial, and some preservative.

In the privacy of your own home, you poop in the bucket, swab it, seal it all up, rebox it, and send the whole thing back for testing via UPS. Did I feel strange handing a box of poop to the poor polo-shirt-clad kid at the UPS store? Yes, I did.

But it saved me from the horrors of colonoscopy prep and the sedation and recovery, so it was all worth it.

I remember the days when my friends and I used to dream about winning an Oscar for best screenplay or a Grammy for Album of the Year. No one ever told me that the wildest thing to happen to me in a week would be that I would get to poop in a box and mail it to someone.

The question I got was “How would you like to die?” I said “Surrounded by family and friends at a big happy meal, keeling over face-first into a big plate of artichoke risotto.”

Not quite artichoke risotto, but grilled artichokes would definitely do.