Momnesia

Appalachian Emergency Room, Part 1

My younger sister, Kelli, refuses to start her own blog (even though she's the one person in the world who can make me laugh hard enough to vomit), so I have decided that I will occasionally post a story from her part-time gig at a natural foods store in North Georgia.

About an hour outside of Atlanta in a small town is a really high quality natural foods store. Kelli jokes that it's the "Appalachian Emergency Room" because people will come in and ask all manner of questions that one might ask a licensed medical practitioner.

"And you can hardly get a word edgewise before they launch into their stories," Kelli said. Stories that are frequently of a very personal nature. "I just want to interrupt and say, 'Ma'am, I am just a retail clerk. I cannot help you with your vagina.'"

The store owner is a wonderful person - an experienced, licensed homeopath and an all-around natural foods and supplements expert. She's very enthusiastic about her work, to the point that some people might think she's absolutely crackers. But she's not. She's just passionate.

However, one of the things she recommends to people is regular colonics. Now, devotees of a good colon cleanse (most recently marketed as "The Master Cleanse") are quite obsessed, even though there's not a lot of evidence to support their use.

"Have you ever Googled 'colon cleanse?' I've Googled it! Google it now. Do it. There are people who will blog about their colon cleanses, the entire process, with photographs," Kelli exclaimed.

Apparently (and here's where you may want to skip two paragraphs), the colon walls become coated over time with a substance that is eventually expelled during a cleanse.

"It looks like boiled spinach or collard greens, Stacey, and they take these photos of it, where they're showing people what they've just pooped out," Kelli said.

And every one of them is holding up their prize with a stick of some kind. The thing is, all the sticks look familiar...

"You'd think there'd be some difference in the sticks they use, right? Like, some would be just regular sticks from trees, and some might be old broom handles or coat hangers, or something. But, no! They're all about the same color and size and shape - and they're very clean. What I want to know is: Who is marketing the stick?! Who is selling the poop scooper sticks?!"