"You Got Spunk. I hate spunk. "

[Points for ID-ing the headline source.  Your hint is above.]

"Live long. Die Fast."
--Dr. Oz

I'm no fan of Katie Couric. Perky's definitely not my thing. I'll give it up to her tho for airing her colonoscopy several years back, after her husband died of colon cancer. Sure it was kinda tasteless. And sure, everybody made fun of her. But both my grandmothers died long, hideous, needlessly gruesome deaths of colon cancer, so I'm all for anything that bumps up the research funding and awareness -- and definitely screening.

So, this morning was my first solid meal in a week: yogurt and a banana. It tasted good in the same way even sand would taste good if you spent long enough wandering the desert.

As much as I'd love to practice what I preach, I didn't go in for a routine screening colonoscopy. I only had one because of recurring pain, and only after my doc ran out of easier organs to test, like kidneys and ovaries.

I was only able to have one at all because I found a doc who would prescribe a pill-prep instead of the usual two-to-four liter "Lyte" drink that tastes like liquified Pez with a salty sulphur chaser.

Between him, and Facebook, I was able to get a pretty accurate picture of what I was in for. A LOT of people did recommend vodka prep, but that didn't sound quite right. One particularly long discussion thread prompted my friend Mare to chime in, "Never did I think THIS is the part of your anatomy I'd be reading about on Facebook." I told her Facebook is WAY better than WebMD.

What I learned online mostly came from the Dave Barry column everyone thoughtfully emailed me. I'm not a fan of scatological humor (which everyone SHOULD know by now) but I took it to heart when he said once your body has eliminated everything consumed in the LAST two weeks, it then time travels into the future and begins eliminating food you haven't even yet THOUGHT of eating.

That didn't sound like a pleasant prospect to me, so I started early. Two weeks ahead, I cut out red meat (seriously, you don't even WANT to know how long that stuff stays in your system, but suffice to say, it pretty much has to rot its way thru).I remain the devoted-yet-moderate carnivore I've always been, and I hope I never again have to endure two weeks without bacon.

Ten days out, I switched to a "low-residue diet." That basically means: White Food. Potatoes. Rice. Bread. Pasta. Oprah woulda been in heaven -- it's all the stuff she says Bob Greene won't let her eat. Honestly, I've never felt WORSE. Yuck. I had no energy. My blood sugar went haywire. I was cranky ALL the time (maybe it wasn't the food but that's my story and I'm sticking to it). And I went to bed everynight with visions of brussel sprouts and spinach -- my usual favorite foods -- dancing in my head.

About three days out, I just gave up eating and/or lost the will to live. I'm not sure which.Broth.Jell-O.GreenTea. And the nefarious Crystal Lite. Of course I infused the broth with a bouquet garni of garlic, basil, and thyme. C'mon. I'm not an ANIMAL.

It worked. The worst part of the whole thing was drinking all that damn Crystal Lite.

As for the next day, only the IV was awful.(If they wouldn't narrate the part about the veins rolling and running, I would be much less likely to throw up.)

The test itself is exactly what everybody will tell you: Nothing. The last thing I remember is the nurse prying the BlackBerry gently outta my hand and saying, "I'm just putting your cellphone with your clothes under the gurney" to which I responded, "ish not a shellphone, it's a BlackB..."zzzzz.

I remember the drugs really hurt those first few seconds when they hit the IV. The last time I had those, the Nurse told me "your arm will feel a little warm" and my response was "it feels like a thousand bumble bees stinging me from the inside out." The doc said "THAT's a new one." And my stepsister Lisa said later "Perhaps you are just unaccustomed to patients as articulate as my sister."

Admittedly, it only stings for a few seconds. Then you get a few more seconds to contemplate how and why heroin addicts become addicts after all because this is pretty nice and maybe it is perfectly reasonable to knock over a liquor store...And then you pass out. At some point, I asked the nurse what I was getting (I wanted to know, for my file, in case it made me sick later, which it did) and she somewhat condescendingly replied "oh all kinds of good stuff." I felt like telling her my office is WAY downtown and there are probably far more pharmaceutical experts at the bus stop outside my door there than she sees in a week of sales reps parading through with their garish plastic earrings matching their plastic shoes.

But I didn't.I could tell she didn't like me. (In my defense, she wasn't getting my best side.) And an air bubble's an easy thing to pull off.

The only other bad part was dragging my poor college roommate outta bed at 5 am to chauffeur me around and then babysit me all day. I'm sure it isn't the first time she may have cursed the Dean for randomly pairing us up 25 years ago according to last names.

She said later the Nurse probably thought we were "life partners" because she was thoughtfully patting me on the head when I came out of the anesthetic -- the Nurse just didn't realize it was more like this presented an unusual opportunity to poke a badger with a spoon.Nobody would ever think of patting me when I'm awake.

She took me home and let me watch The View and MarthaStewart and bought me potato chips -- inexplicably, the only thing that sounded good to me. And she called all the Usual Suspects for me and told em the doc removed a couple polyps (which should be asymptomatic, but which I think are the culprits since they were sitting RIGHT where the pain has been all along -- and that spot hurt like an MF all DAY after they got the axe).

I remained convinced if I didn't follow doctor's orders she would post the whole procedure on YouTube.

I woke up later to a text from my pal Mare who always knows just the right thing to say. It read, more or less, "I knew Katie Couric. I've watched Katie Couric. And you ma'am, you are no Katie Couric."

Still kinda hurts when I laugh.