A headline from the weekly news flyer on my commuter train:

"Men Usually Quiet About Colon Health"

And some of you were thinking you don't have anything to be thankful for this year. The author believes this is a problem, because men who are "quiet about colon health" are less likely to ask their doctors to give them the old Vaseline-assisted check-up. I think a nation full of less stoic men, however, would be unpleasant.

"C'mere, kids, and let me tell you about my colon."

"Not again, Uncle Herb. We're tired of listening to your colon stories."

"Nonsense, Junior! We can never get tired of our colon, and do ya know why?"

"Why?"

"Because our colon never gets tired of us. That's right! Why, I remember a year I had to work second-shift, and my poor colon got abused on a regular basis."

"Herb, this isn't another county prison story is it, because I've talked to you about sharing that with the children."

"No, Erma, now pipe down! Now where was I? Oh yes, second shift. I would eat greasy pizza night after night, sometimes a Philly steak sandwich or just a roll of that Hickory Farms beef sausage."

"Eww."

"You don't know the half of it! Why, I don't think my colon saw a vegetable the entire winter of '68! But did it give up on me? Heck no! It kept right on processing, because that's what our colon does! It's God's way of saying 'Eat lots of red meat!'"

"I don't think God said that."

"Well of course he didn't say it, that's just a figure of speech. The point is, our colon is a thick pink snake coiled up inside our guts, waiting to mush up and extrude anything we stuff down our undiscriminating gullets. But if you abuse Mr. Colon for too long, he'll grow long black tumors that eat away your flesh. Okay kids?"

"Children! Time to eat!"

"I'm not hungry."

"I feel sick."

"I want my Mommy."

A nation of men quiet about their colons? Not necessarily a bad thing.