Rear Window.

"blah blah blah colonoscopy blah blah blah..."

"I'm sorry? What was that middle part again?"

"Colonoscopy."

"Um. No thanks, I'm all set with that."

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And so it began: a short hospital stay over the summer leading to the nutty hijinks that is a colonoscopy this morning. The end.

When I make jokes about feeling old, people try to reassure me, "But you're so young!" they say. "What are you, 31, 32?"

"I just turned 38 in October."

"Oh. Well, that's not so old."

It's not the number that gets me, it's the various and sundry ailments that I've had the good fortune of recovering from over the last few years.

Remind me to tell you about that goofy day when they found a blood clot in my lung. Oh my HA HA HA HA HA that was a silly day.

Or when the doctor thought I had SHINGLES. "How old are you again?" he asked, flipping through his chart. "36. I'm 36."

"Hm. We don't see that too often from someone your age."

And most recently, my summer stay at the spa, or as I like to call it, "Three Days in the Hospital Where They Do Nothing But Ask Really Personal Questions and Deprive You of Bad Hospital Food."

Which brings me to this morning, or, "Aren't You Going to At Least Buy Me Dinner First?"

I am utterly freaked out by discussing anything of a personal nature, even with medical professionals. It usually results in much blushing and eye-rolling on my part and much foot-tapping impatience on theirs. So for the purposes of modesty, I'll be omitting the part called "Colonoscopy Prep" that occurred in my home yesterday. Trust me, you're welcome. Let us never speak of it again.

Flash forward to this morning, all gussied up in my finest hospital-wear, back a-flappin', a lovely IV port sticking out of my elbow, beyond tense and totally freaked out. If I go to my happy place in my mind (the beach) I can kind of ignore the situation at hand. Then the doctor starts going over the procedure and is surprised when I hold up my hand, Diana Ross Stop in the Name of Love-Style.

"I'm good, really. I don't want to know exactly what's going to happen. You just do your thing and I'll pretend I'm...elsewhere."

"You know, you will be asleep. You're not even going to know what's going on."

Thinking to myself, Yeah, okay. As if I'm not going to know that you're...doing that thing you were just describing.

So they wheel me into the Procedure Room (How Polite!), slam on the brakes, and the anesthesiologist comes over with this big, ginormous needle and proceeds to inject it into my IV port.

"It'll just take a minute then you'll be sound asleep. After a short while, you'll wake up feeling very refreshed."

REFRESHED. I don't know about you, Buster, but to me, refreshing is more of the crisp mojito on a hot day variety.

The last thing I remember saying,"Y'know, I've never been a drug user but this is pretty coool..."

And then I woke up in recovery. Literally with no recollection of what had just occurred. How scary is that? I had no idea. Had they not even told me what was to happen beforehand I would have woken up thinking, "Haircut? Nosejob? Manicure? What? What happened?" I was half-expecting to look down to find I was kidney-less in a bathtub full of ice cubes.

The nurse who pulled me back from beyond was very funny and sweet. And possibly a bit taken aback when she was commenting on the office's recently remodeled digs, and I responded sleepily,

"It's totally the nicest place I've ever been so&*mized in."

I blame the drugs.