Another contender for Village Idiot
So for the past few days I’ve been on a guided tour of Irritable Bowel Syndrome, getting to know my city in a whole new way: by its bathrooms. Which ones can I go in without a) needing to get a key from the store clerk, b) buying something and c) that are actually on my way? It’s a science. It’s also a sign that I should reduce my daily intake of magnesium. Did I ever think my most fervent prayer to date would be a plea for well-formed stool?
I admit I have been feeling a little vulnerable lately, and I’m not sure how this happened, but I have a vague memory that a couple of hours ago I advised a new age bookstore manager and her assistant of my spastic colon. At the cash register.
It actually did fit in to the conversation somewhat, as we were talking about the psychic who’d alerted me to my intestinal ’situation.’ They wanted to know what she had said, how the psychic had helped me. And so I told them I had had years of chronic troubles and she clarified them for me, blah blah blah IBS blah blah that Crohn’s thing blah blah blah…
Yet the manager’s assistant was a stern woman who’d lost the ability and/or desire to smile, and I detected a slight air of condescension in her tone of voice. She seemed out of place in this airy-fairy new age deal replete with crystals, incense and Ayurvedic enema videos. She really had “Office Manager” written on her forehead rather than “Helpful and Cheery Patchouli-Laden and Slightly Stoned Nymphette at Your Service.”
Upon my declaration, she turned to me and said, “You have IBS? Oh, that’s easy. That’s simple to deal with.”
As if I could cure it while filing my nails.
“You just need to change your diet. Just eliminate the foods that don’t work for you, and you’ll be fine.”
Now you - my lovely readers - know that if I had clocked her upside the head, none of you would have told the police ANYTHING.
Perhaps I should have just given her a winning smile and said, “Gee! Is that all that it takes? Golly, I feel SO MUCH BETTER NOW!”
But I didn’t.
Instead, I responded, “Well, I actually have an excellent diet!”
Whereupon she countered, “But you must not be eating the right foods or you wouldn’t have any symptoms.”
Obviously this clod is looking at my rotund frame and wondering how many pizzas and Ho Hos I’ve eaten today.
Visit any IBS support group and you’ll see that nobody has the same diet as anybody else, and that just about every food on the planet triggers somebody’s symptoms.
I’m thinking I need an apology.
To assuage my pain, I proceeded to a different bookstore and engaged in some primo retail therapy. I bought the wonderful polemic (depending on your POV) Bush on the Couch, a psychotherapist’s analysis of this most peculiar man, and The Weight Loss Cure, a book that delves into the most peculiar if quite effective form of weight loss by daily injections of hCG.
I feel SO MUCH BETTER NOW.
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