Welcome to the Commune podcast. My name is Jeff Kratnow.

Now many of you may receive my weekly Sunday commusing article where I address a breadth of issues from the spiritual to the physiological to the sociopolitical.

And on occasion, I will also record an audio version

of these articles and release it here as a bonus episode.

So this short episode recounts a serendipitous encounter that I recently had, and as soon as it

happened, I knew it was destined for the podcast.

It was so wonderful and strange.

So I hope you enjoy this episode, titled Stopping to Smell the Roses.

Thank you. One must endure significant indignity in the quest to be well.

I'm specifically referring to the medically sanctioned invasion of orifices in the name of disease detection.

Now, women are more acclimated to such violations as initial visits to the gynecologist

coincide with orthodontist appointments in early adolescence.

But men, as they are apt to do, delay analogous measures until later in life.

But starting at age 50, that's right, the parties over,

and foreign objects increasingly find their way toward and up the male anus.

I recently got my colonoscopy. An endoscope traveled a yard and a half

up my large intestine. That's not a short distance. Just ask a fullback on fourth down. Of course,

thankfully, I was dead to the world from this trespassing, and whomever invented Propheaval deserves the Nobel Prize

for anesthetizing me. Unfortunately, I was very much awake for my recent annual prostate exam.

The entire visit to my primary care physician is an inexorable and dreary march toward the practice, dubiously known as

the reach-around. Now, there's always a glimmer of hope that maybe she'll forget. Of course,

she never does. I know the drill. I grab the cold, hard edges of the metal exam table,

...