How to evade awkward questions

Applause

I volunteered for about two years in a G.I. lab at the local hospital. (Doing some light typing and filing). A lot of people would comment on that awful stuff they had to drink before a colonoscopy. Is that the same thing?

Nah, the pre-colonoscopy stuff is a watery, electrolyte-enhanced, purgative designed to cause explosive defecation resulting an an empty, squeaky-clean colon. The barium solution tastes kind of like a chalky, room-temperature meal-replacement drink, and it’s designed to coat the inside of the GI tract, making it possible to get a good X-ray image of the contours thereof.

The barium concoction can be somewhat constipating, and they usually warn you to drink lots of fluids after a round of the stuff to ensure that this doesn’t happen. Shit passed after drinking barium may not glow, but it doesn’t float, either.

I remember one time, when I was probably about 10 or 12, that I was looking for the latest issue of Nintendo Power magazine, and thought it might be found at a store with blacked-out windows and a sign that said “popular magazines”, or some such. After all, Nintendo Power has to be a pretty popular magazine, right? I don’t remember all the details, but Mom straightened me out on that one.

He actually ended up looking it up in the dictionary.

When I was in my tweens/early teens, I spent a lot of time with the Family Medical Guide, trying to fill the gaps in my knowledge. When I was the mother of a tween, I bought her a copy of Our Bodies, Our Selves, which had many interesting and educational articles, photos, and illustrations. She was highly embarrassed, but I noticed that the book stayed in her room, and moved about the room. Apparently she got over her embarrassment enough to read the book.

When she was in her mid teens, I bought a box of condoms, and showed her how to put a condom on a broomstick. I told her that using a condom properly might save her life and health. This was another “MOTHER, I AM going to DIE of EMBARRASSMENT” moment, but she lived through it.

Broomsticks are not all that wide. You really were preparing her for real life weren’t ya? :stuck_out_tongue:

It is not advisable to go any further than about 50 feet from a bathroom after drinking the colonoscopy purgative. That stuff is very, very effective.

After having the X rays done of my innards, the techs kept me at the clinic until I had passed as much of the residue as I could.

We were all at my grandmother’s house watching tv (she was about 75 at the time), and someone on the tube mentioned the word blowjob. She turns to my mother and says “What’s a blowjob?” My mom shifts uncomfortably because her four kids are in the room, two of them snickering, and says “That’s oral sex, Mom.” My grandmother, not satisfied (heh) with the answer, “What’s that?” And so my mom leans over and whispers in her ear, and my grandmother pauses, looks at my mom to make sure she’s not making a joke and says “That’s disGUSTing!”

I remember when I was young my parents got me a “where do babies come from” book, and we also watched a sex ed show together - it wasn’t explicit, but it did show graphics of how to put a condom on. It also showed one comedy skit of the lady putting a condom on a guys foot (If its any bigger than that sex is off!)