I beg your pardon, but you are in polite company

There are very few polite ways to talk about this. “This” is more unmentionable than “ladies unmentionables.” I suppose if you were looking for a euphemism you could use “output” but I think that it is already taken by the liquid variety of human waste.

Let me, um, back up for a second and say that digestion, not elimination, has always been my weak spot. I was diagnosed with a pre-ulcer sophomore year in high school, but looking back I believe that the doctor was an idiot and did not want to take the time to tell a stressed-out high-schooler that she had a heavy work load and just needed to go with the flow more.

Digestively speaking, I might have fewer enzymes in my stomach than I should. Or, it could be a disconnect between my mouth and my stomach. I keep eating after my stomach “done.” And then it hurts. Does it hurt because there’s too much in there? Is there too much in there because I don’t have enough digestive enzymes to get rid of it? You see my dilemma.

There are some things that, even in moderation, sparks annoyance in my stomach. Take garlic, for instance. I’m still working out the particulars, but if garlic is in salad dressing, it seems to cause a little digestive distress and a lot of burping. But maybe it’s because salads are not physically dense, and so I swallow air when eating them. It might be the garlic, it might be the air. Again, I’m in perplexment.

But overall, things go the way they’re supposed to. And then the other week, I inadvertently discovered (I mean, do you look at it every day?) that my waste disposal system was excreting liquids and semi-solids of an unexpected color. And when that happens, it’s enough to loosen your bowels.

It's not my personality that's colorful

Even though I was experiencing a colorfulness heretofore unknown in my life, I did not initially seek out medical care, because, well, I was waiting to see if it would, uh, work itself out.

Chalk it up to my authentic New England reservedness, but I was not keen to announce “My poop is red.” I decided to give myself three days to see what would happen.

Because I am who I am, however, it was a distracted few days: what if this is one of those things that really is really bad? Blood in your stool is really bad, right? If it’s in your urine as well, that means it’s a system-wide malady, doesn’t it? Don’t I know someone who knows someone with a colostomy bag? How many people are going to look up my bum with a light attached to a cable? Will I be awake for when they look up my bum? Will I hear them talking while they look up my bum? What do they talk about when looking up people’s bums? Other people’s bums? Do people with cellulite-free bums ever need to have someone look up their bums? What kind of person decides to make a career out of looking up people’s bums?

Physically, I didn’t feel different. I had no pain, no increase in…anything. I felt like I always do.

Be still, my beeting heart

On the morning of the third day, I felt compelled to broach this topic to my boyfriend, since we live together and he would be the one to provide most of my care should I need it. Also, my boyfriend is not a sarcastic person and not afraid of reality, so it was easier to talk to him than, say, to my mother, who takes the fatalistic view (as in, “they say we might get flurries today, don’t you think you should cancel your party tonight?”).

Let me tell you that it is possible to have an adult conversation about this subject. My boyfriend heard my statements without comment. He let me finish without once looking away. Then he said, “Didn’t we have beets the other night?”

Oh for gawd’s sakes, we had beets the other night. There’s nothing wrong with me, our healthy lifestyle is actually healthy, nobody’s going to look up my bum. We ate beets the other night. The coloring in beets is excreted in your, uh, excretions. Everyone’s excretions.

Just to make sure, the following week I ran an “experiment” to prove my findings.

I am about to publish a completely unscientific paper entitled “Beets makes your poop red,” which will no doubt be posted on the same site that has that other important scientific document, “Asparagus makes your pee stink.”

For information on this actual subject, click here to read what the Mayo Clinic has to say about fecal blood.

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