Last night was colonic night. Scouse had been emailing me throughout the day, as it dawned on her that otherwise undiscovered parts of her anatomy were going to be probed by a complete stranger.
"***** told me it was as big as man's part!?!"
This was one of the more frantic emails of the day. However she managed to pull herself together and so after work I met her in a car park in Chorley to walk down to the clinic.
The clinic was run by a couple, with 2 treatment rooms and a reception area. As (to our relief) the lady treated female clients and the man just men we had to decide who went first and who hung out in reception.
I volunteered to go first, giving Scouse a bit more time to come to terms with the logistics involved in the process. Once in the treatment room, with all the equipment laid out on the bed it dawned on me. I was here, because I was stupid. I'm an idiot, doing idiotic things because I'm having an idiotic crisis and coping with it in a completely idiotic way. What was worse, I was roping my poor friends into coming along for the ride!
But the blog must go on. So I listened intently as the therapist pulled out a large, laminated diagram of the digestive system (Wipe clean, I thought, must be handy in this line of work). She explained to me where everything was inside me, what it all does and how a colonic could help. I was pretty nervous by this point, so was sort of staring past her imaging all the horrific and degrading situations that could occur whilst being hooked up to water flow by your nether regions.
I was brought back into the conversation with a bump when she announced with pride that she only used disposable attachments. This shocked me, because this meant that it some places they don't! Eww Eww Eww!
I was told to put on a dressing gown, go into the toilet and take off everything below the waist. This alone made me feel a little violated and I began to understand the reason why "Celebrity Colonic" may have been the death nail in Richard Blackwood's career. Once back in the room, the therapist told me to "pop myself on the bed", and turn on my side. Hmmm sweet, twee language wasn't go to fool me. I knew what was coming and no amount of happy go lucky phrases such as “popping” oneself anywhere was going to change that.
I'm not going to be graphic here, there is no need and I can feel the dignity that I have seeping through the tip of each finger as I type this, lost in the abyss of what I like to call "Emersion Journalism" and everyone else likes to call "F*cking Stupidity".
I was hooked up to the machine and process began. At this point I felt rather helpless. I couldn't move and was at the mercy of whatever the therapist wanted to talk about and / or do to me. We covered all sorts of topics; where I worked, why she chose this particular career path ect. But never in my wildest dreams did I ever imagine a situation where, I would be discussing the possibility of Michael Jackson's death being a conspiracy theory - with a petite blond lady in her early 50s - that I'd only just met and allowed to stick a pipe up my bum! It was all just a bit too surreal and I didn't quite know how I felt about it.
Now and again she would praise me about what she could see in the tube. I found this very odd. A "well done" for something that was happening whether I liked it or not was bizarre, but I suppose it was infinitely better at her staring at the tube exclaiming "Oh my god, that's revolting, Oh no, that's not right, you are a freak".
This, ALL of this, was not the worst bit of the treatment though. Once she was satisfied all the water and tummy massaging had done it's job, I was instructed to go into the loo which was attached to the treatment room and "evacuate". Now, bearing in mind I'd been hooked up for 40 minutes, there was absolutely no way I could do this in a discreet and silent manor. To say I was cringing puts it very lightly, I was devastated. I could here her setting the room up for Scouse, pottering about as I sat there trying to think of elaborate was to ensure I avoided seeing this woman again for the rest of my life. She must have read my mind as I heard her trill "There are sanitary towels on the side pet, if you want to pop one on for piece of mind". WHAT?! This was too much, there was absolutely no way on this earth I was going to "evacuate" in the middle of Chorley town centre - It's not the way my mother brought me up. So I sat there a little longer until I was satisfied I was OK.
I swapped places with Scouse, and she walked after the therapist with smile on her face that did a really crap job of hiding the fear. As I waited, the male therapist handed me my aftercare notes. On the front of the notes there was a note reading that they also provided food intolerance testing.
"What sort of food intolerance testing do you do here" I enquired
"Oh, I'm also a Kinesiology
Run away! Run away! was my initial thought, gripping onto my purse in case he tied to talk me into buying some magic beans and a rabbit’s foot. But instead, I thought I'd take the opportunity to ask some more questions and try to see if I could understand it better the second time round. I explained to him about how my last session seemed like an elaborate sales pitch, and how I thought the tenuous links to scientific theory were questionable.
He leapt up and went to grab a book all about the subject, sitting down next to me talking passionately about how effective it was. The book was written by a paraplegic who had used Kinesiology to regain the use of his limbs. It made me feel a little more settled that the book was written by a Dr of science and his picture on the front made him look very serious.
To the credit of the man therapist, he articulated the defence of his practice a little better than the old "What is the opposite of a pen... not a pen!" analogy used in my session last week. He also said that selling me pills to counteract reactions was not really the approach he would take. He viewed Kinesiology as subconscious learning techniques, so in theory the Kinesiologist can turn off the reaction not the tablet.. (OK so I was getting a little lost here, but from what I could decipher even if I didn't believe in the effectiveness, he did and didn't use it as a sales tool).
Then, he started prodding me and poking me in my acupressure points with the obligatory holistic "Um hum, yeah, um hum, I see" whilst pressing down on my outstretched arm. (If this is making no sense to you, have a read of my entry "What is the opposite of a pen - not a pen!" entry). It all still baffled me, and by the time Scouse was finished both my bowel and mind were completely vacant. So in that situation, there was only one thing for it. Off to the Golden arches to retox and discuss loudly in front of the teen population of Chorley the merits of being violated with a hose.
PS: When I woke up this morning - I wasn't any thinner.
