my dark side ...

There really wasn’t anything that had me laughing about families or kids this week. Unsurprisingly really, because possibly they’re mostly a bit bloody ho-hum. I managed to steer clear of smack, booze (mostly) and valium which I think is not only noteworthy but proves that I’m really putting my back into this role-model slash mothering business. So what do you do when you feel your week’s been a bit mundane? You experiment with your bodily functions of course. Here’s my brief foray into my dark side.

Over time I’ve read a lot of literature (in retrospect, maybe too much) about the benefits of having a clean colon. Now, I can’t consciously remember ever having gone in there to do a spring-clean myself and apparently All Bran doesn’t actually cut as much mustard as you’d think. Mmm, what to do?  The thought of having someone stick a pipe up my rear-end just seemed too dire as an initial step. What sort of conversation could I possibly strike up with the person doing it I have to wonder?  I decided the next best thing would be to give an “Iso-Osmotic Bowel Clearance Solution” a whirl.

I think the name they give it  - Klean-Prep - somewhat glosses over it’s true potential. It should be called “Complete Overhaul” or “Power hose pipe-wash”, something like that.  To indicate the potency of this stuff I’ll say this. There are four sachets per pack and after drinking the contents of just one sachet – which I hasten to add, gets mixed into one whole litre of water – I was sure that all my innards had pretty much entirely disintegrated.  

You’re supposed to down 250ml of Satan’s Solution every 15 min. Even under normal circumstances, drinking four litres of anything in four hours can make you feel like puking.  Add to that four litres of water, four sachets of evil tasting Iso-osmotic Bowel Clearance Solution and quite frankly, there should be some sort of award if you can keep it all down.  Not least of all because the solution hardly tastes like a solution at all.  In fact it never ceases to amaze me how things that are supposedly good for you – like solutions – taste like they come from bowels of Lucifer, and things that are supposedly bad for you – like chocolate and whiskey – taste like they are made in God’s kitchen itself.

I blame myself, really, for not taking the time to gain more insight into what the experience held.  Here are a few clues I gleaned (after the fact) from the packaging and insert:

1. Eat no solid food for at least 2 hours before taking Klean-Prep.  I can only assume that this is so you don’t ruin your relationship with the foodstuff that you may have consumed. 

2. Klean-Prep is designed to cleanse the bowel and will cause diarrhoea-like watery bowel movements. A more accurate description would be: hold onto your seat because your rear-end’s going to have the kick of a fire hose

3. The first of these liquid bowel movements should occur within 1-2 hours of starting to drink the solution.  How about: 5mins after you get your first 250ml down, you will let out and exceptionally loud fart, one so loud that it has people running for cover, three houses away. 5 min after that, you will start shooting through the eye of a needle.

4. You should stay near a toilet while talking Klean-Prep. They say that like you have any choice in the matter. Even Johnny Depp couldn’t tempt me to stray from the toilet.

5. Nausea, abdominal fullness and bloating may be experienced. Tick. Abdominal cramps, vomiting and anal irritation can occur.  Tick.  The only thing they left out is that it actually affects your vision.  Truly.  Your bowels must be connected to your eyes in some way because I was weeping and the room went blurry. At some stage I think I saw stars.

Amongst other things, unless completely necessary, I now avoid boxes with words like diarrhoea, nausea, cramps, vomiting and irritation. Just spelling them makes me feel them. I’m also investigating whether it’s legal to combine so many types of Sodium (who knew?) into one preparation.  I feel sure there’s should be a law against it.

In closing, I swear so help me God that nothing I have ever ingested (in my past few lifetimes, even) has any aromatic resemblance with what came out in the end, or at the end.  I was left with the horrific realisation that just a few minutes before, that odour actually resided inside me. The bonus of this exercise, however, is that I’m sure that if I stand in front of a fan with my mouth wide open, I will actually be able to whistle out my bum.  Now that’s not something you can do every day.

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