Steely Dad

Ever watch the Discovery Channel show, I Shouldn’t Be Alive? It’s a program that reenacts real-life survival situations of average people (unlike survivor specialists Survivorman and Man v Wild). It’s compelling TV and I for one give it the Steely Dad thumbs up.

The producers of that show should do an episode on my recent survival experience.

No, I wasn’t caught in an avalanche subsisting only on pee-laden snow and no, I wasn’t stranded on the African plains surviving on elephant dung while fending off attacks from lions with a spear fashioned from the elastic band of my underwear and a filed-down button. No, my friends, this experience was much more harrowing than the aforementioned scenarios.

My survival experience involved four days of long treks, screaming kids, rude people, crappy food and massive crowds at The Happiest Place on Earth, otherwise known as Disneyland.

If you’ve ever been to Disneyland then you know precisely the survivor skills required to get out alive (and without having to file bankruptcy upon your return to civilization). One must be able to tolerate the searing pain of having countless strollers, some of them double-wides, rolled over your minimally-protected feet. One must be able to stand for long periods of time with antsy kids in lines that seem miles long. One must be able to stomach super-fried edibles without getting a violent case of the squirts that rivals Giardia. To be sure, one must be able to take being knocked and pushed around by large swarms of humanity without going postal. In addition, and this is perhaps the most crucial Disneyland survival skill, one must be able to distract the kids long enough to avoid spending huge sums of cash in the kid-appealing souvenir shops one will encounter immediately exiting each and every ride and attraction. It is the most skilled survivor who can do this without triggering an all-out flailing episode.

In addition to these skills, my personal experience in Disneyland required a skill, nay, an adaptation that most Steely Dad readers will find they already possess. For me, a supremely brave man who has always stared death and danger directly in the eye, I have to enter into an ecstatic trance in order to get my butt on…roller coasters. Anyone who knows me knows this about me. Roller coasters are my kryptonite, my Achilles Heel, my sole lapse in an otherwise armor-like aura. My phobia of roller coasters is the culmination of two traumatic events in my life. The first I attribute to a prenatal trauma when “Mom the Daredevil” went on a ride during my fragile gestational period that resulted in my mom hurling chunks. This incident occurred during the 70s, before they had signs warning pregnant women that going on coasters was a stupid idea. In fact, my mom’s experience set a precedent requiring all amusement parks to post the pregnant woman warning signs. The other trauma happened when my parents took me to a local fair run by a family of gypsies. You know the type where the operator of the ride has a patch over one eye and lacks any evidence that his mouth once housed teeth. Well, the ride I was on broke down and it caused a minor panic in the parents and a major one in me.

I could go on describing the depth of my phobia but it would require time better spent on other endeavors, like wrapping up this blog post. The point is, I’m deathly afraid of roller coasters. However, my three-year-old son (as well as my one-year-old daughter, who went on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride) LOVES roller coasters. Ever since I took him on this wimpy ride at Legoland when he was two, he has been addicted to rides. Well, I must say that after four days at Disneyland not only was I able to control my fear of Disney’s relatively tame coasters I actually began to enjoy them. With Steely Son, we hit up Thunder Mountain (his personal favorite) about 20 times, Space Mountain four times and a few rides on the famous Matterhorn. So how’d I do it? How did I adopt this unique survival skill? Bottom line: I had to Dad up and be there for my boy. That’s what dads do.

Am I ready for the panic-inducing rides at places like Six Flags? Not a chance. What will I do when he’s ready for those rides? I’ll do what any other courageous dad would do: have his mommy take him.

As a 37-year-old guy, I had never had a colon cleanse or high colonic or any one of the numerous bionic cleansing products on the market. Not since I was three and going through the anal retentive stage had I ever required any “assistance” in that department. The need or desire to excavate my poop vein by any means other than the natural peristalsis ever occurred to me. Not to toot my own poop but my bowels are as regular as a bar fly in a dive on the wrong side of town. You can set a watch to my bowel “inspirations.” In fact, Les Stroud, Mr. Survivorman himself, has asked me to consult him on the lost art of how to use ones bowels to determine the number of hours left in the day. OK, so I think you get the poop, I mean the point.

But listening to the radio these days one can’t help but be bombarded with reports, however exaggerated, of clogged bowels. This is a national epidemic, according to the ads, and everything from hair loss to impotence can be attributed to bowel blockage. Terms such as “spackle” and “wet cement” have been used to describe the interior walls of our tripe. Really? Is this true? There is wet cement in my plumbing? I don’t like the sound of that.

It got me thinking. I mean, I’m not usually so easily convinced by such alarming messages but I started to get these images of one of those cement mixing machines, churning and turning the wet cement that eventually hardens into concrete. We all know how important it is to avoid that at all costs. Having helped my son evacuate on more than one occasion, I noticed this kid gets it all out in one, often massive, missile. Comparing my production to his, I began to feel as inadequate as a prepubescent at a Tommy Lee convention. Not only that, this kid’s done in 30 seconds, 20 if he’s in a hurry to get back to playing GI Joes. Although my timing is impressive, I can often linger long enough to read an entire Ayn Rand tome.

The concept became more and more intriguing. Apparently, many health benefits can supposedly be obtained through a regular cleansing of the intestines. Weight loss, an effervescent glow (come on guys, you all know how desirable an effervescent glow can be), increased mental dexterity, better breath, less bloating, you name it. Being a curious creature, I wanted to learn more. So I consulted the only person I know who’s versed in all matters of health, my wife.

Even though I was only at the initial research stage of my investigation, the missus returned from the store the next day with a bottle of lemon-flavored saline solution and some enemas. (Apparently she was really excited about my interest in pooping out my guts.) Saline solution, fine but whoa, I’m not sure I bargained for anything that requires insertion into an area that was clearly designed for egress only. Oh, what the hell. I’ll give it a go, I convince myself. How bad can it be? And then my wife offered a stern warning. “Don’t plan to do anything, and I mean anything, tomorrow.” Now I started to get justifiably scared. I suddenly imagined myself walking around the house in a poop-filled adult undergarment waiting for some unfortunate soul to change me.

The following day I had my saline solution and enemas all lined up. As I would find out later, the enemas are like a fine digestif to enjoy after the day-long drilling that your bowels will endure. With no excuses left, I began to drink this salty liquid that was only made more disgusting by the faux lemon flavoring. With tremendous anticipation, I waited for the urge to present itself. Well, I didn’t have to wait long and I didn’t have to wait often. I began to resemble an inverted version of Old Faithful http://www.steelydad.com/colon-cleanse.html/wyoming-old-faithful2. At times I felt like a faucet that had been left on. It was quite an experience but in the name of holistic health, I was willing to keep a positive outlook.

As if this alone was not uncomfortable, I was informed by my wife that no eating was allowed. “You don’t want to go gumming up the works after you just cleaned them do you,” she asked in her patented condescending tone she reserves for only the most idiotic comments. “But I’m starving,” I begged. “You can have some light broth but nothing else,” she commanded. Let me tell you, man cannot live on broth alone but I’ve come this far and I can already tell this is not something I want to do on a regular basis. I mean, don’t we have medicines to prevent this type of thing from happening to us and here I am self-inducing such discomfort on my own volition.

Fast forward about 10 hours later, I’m as cleansed as cleansed can be, I assured myself, but my bowels aren’t quite finished. I discovered that our bowels are ingeniously designed to find things and move them out and when there isn’t anything left, they will keep searching, forever if necessary. They’re ready for more! “It’s enough, already,” I pleaded with them, “take five.” Like a sponge that’s been rung out so not a single drop of liquid may be found, I am spent. Not even in utero have my bowels been this clean, I surmise. I searched for the relief I was promised but my arse is so sore from all the “cleansing” that I couldn’t sit down. Oh, wait, I suddenly remembered the final step: the enema! Suddenly, the room went completely black except for some halo of light that surrounded my little companion. I swear, this thing openly mocked me as I stared at it. I’m supposed to put that in there? Ughhhh, I’m not even sure I can do it. But in the name of science I “man” up (even though I felt like anything but a man) and go about the work of finishing off my adventure with the enema, which is like a self-contained fire extinguisher for the butt. Once that was completed, I swear I had a vision of my bowels pushing themselves away from the dinner table, tidying up the corner of their mouth with a linen napkin, exhaling, “That was some gooooood eats.”

If I was to write an honest review of the colon cleanse, I would have to say the entire experience was truly a disappointment but at the same time left absolutely nothing to be desired. I didn’t feel lighter, I didn’t feel healthier, I didn’t lose any weight and whatever semblance of pride I might have been clinging to before was washed down the loo with my colon spackle. Not only that, but for several days after this abdominal trauma, my timing was all off and production was pitiful. However normal this might be following such a process, it’s no consolation when you really feel the urge for a big evacuation. From now on whenever I need a good colon cleanse, I’m going to rely on the only tried-and-true method that has never failed me: carne asada burritos, rolled tacos con guacamole and lots of fiery hot salsa. It works every time.