every party has a pooper, II, or of Jell-O shots and the long and winding road

Trust 30: “Finish each day and be done with it. You have done what you could.”

What is one thing you can do that would make today worthwhile? What’s stopping you from getting started right now?

(Author: Jessica Dang)

editor's note: the story you are about to read contains unmentionables.

watching giada delaurentis make a tomato salad with corn and red onion is not a good idea when you're on a strickly Jell-O and clear liquids diet. even if it is for only a day, doesn't the guy who will be putting me to sleep tomorrow morning after a ghastly night of not eating and, well, you know, doesn't he know that it is high tomato season right now and even in my own paltry tomato garden they're turning ripe as we speak? thinking about those red, juicy, meaty morsels makes my mouth water.

i'm having a party tonight, but red is not invited. and though whenever i host a party, i make sure the necessaries are all appropriately stocked for my guests, this time, i'm the only one i'm stocking up for.

today i have eaten this: three Jell-O shots (sans any additive except food coloring) for breakfast. four for lunch. a JI-nor-mous decaf iced tea of my own making, a couple of glasses of cranberry/pomegranate juice (no wait, does that have RED in it?!?) and another Jell-O shot for a snack. all of the green variety. in another hour or so, i'll carefully measure out five 8-oz glasses of my favorite beverage ginger ale or water or something like that  and get ready for a downer for the next hour. down the hatch with the pills (20 in an hour, happy cocktail!), down the long and winding road, then down down down the drain. and down some more. i hope. and that it won't take long.

i've been carrying the instructions around in my purse for a week. taking them out, reading through them as if they contain the cryptic key to some way OUT OF THIS. i've pulled them out at the grocery store, carefully filling my cart with baby wipes, ginger ale, tp purchases to fill my necessary for the BIG D. today i have moped like a child who knows santa's coming in july because she's been so bad the first half of the year that he has to come when the switches are particularly pliable. i have convinced myself that i am the first person on the planet to ever EVER voluntarily go without food freshly ripe heirloom tomatoes, sweet corn, cucumbers and peaches for a full summer day, just so a stranger wearing latex gloves the doctor can have the pleasure of the  poke & prod my clean as whistle (what does that mean anyway?) parts of me to make sure they are, in fact, clean as a whistle.

oh, lookey here: the directions say no VEGETABLES, so technically, since tomatoes are a FRUIT, i can have just a little sliver with a little salt and pepper sprinkled on them, i mean it'll be digested and purged gone before i get there, so how will they know? even if i puree?

oh, but there's that red thing.

when i was in college, i got my wisdom teeth out on a summer day and had to do without tomatoes during peak season. i could only eat things like apple sauce. so after about a week of that, i came home and made the most beautiful beefsteak tomato sandwich on Wonder bread with Dukes i have ever seek, cutting it up into the tiniest of pieces and fitting it into my mouth around my swollen gums. i swear the vitamins hastened my recovery. i love summer tomatoes that much. and it's been two days since i had even the heel. imagine.

ok so i am a year or so little behind schedule. i have known it was an eventuality ever since i saw katie couric show how to right on television, though as i recall, she did not have cameras rolling in the necessary. despite evidence to the contrary, there are things even morning television won't show. i do know how important this is, and that's why, though i have been tempted all day to cheat, i mean really, how would they know if i ate a cracker, just one little pepperidge farm butterfly cracker wouldn't hurt a thing now would it? i have followed the directions very carefully. 

my walking friend succumbed to pressure worse than a hemorrhoid and got hers done over the winter, so she got to drink warm chicken broth when her time came. 'the procedure is nothing.' she said. 'i'm good for 10 years.'

this morning on our walk i wondered aloud if i could just call my favorite mexican restaurant and ask them for the chicken soup but could they hold the chicken, the rice, the onions, the tomatoes, the avocado just this once? it's the broth that makes it good, right? and then i remembered how last winter, after trying to swallow the ji-nor-mous amount of prescribed poo potion, my friend called me saying it was the worst thing she'd ever had to do. the worst. so of course i can't wait. there is such pleasure in company. but i opted for the pills, which themselves are of ji-nor-mous portions. choose your poo portion carefully.

giada is ending her party with peanut butter oatmeal bars, just in time for my party to begin. i'm getting hungry now, so guess that meas ANOTHER JELL-O SHOT. what flavor shall I choose?

even i, the doctor's daughter who hates to go to the doctor know how important this is. so there's no part time partying this time. one thing's for sure: no question about who the pooper will be.