Lifestyles: Men Have Problems Too

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The Unspeakable Malady • Andrew Stuart has a pain in the...

Buying off-brand Froot Loops (Fruity-O’s) are okay, but buying an off-brand hemorrhoid medication is not.

It’s 3:45 a.m. as I write this. I’m drunk, and I have a hemorrhoid. This might seem like some sort of strange artistic opening to an autobiographical story about something other than my hemorrhoid, but unfortunately for you dear reader it is not. This is a story about my ass and the god forsaken burst blood vessel inside of it.
I shouldn’t have opened like this, but It’s late and I feel no need to edit what I write at this point. My ass hurts. I’ve found that hemorrhoids are useful in that sense.
"I can’t lift that…my ass hurts",
"I would love to help you move this weekend, but my ass hurts."
"I truly would drive you home tonight, but I have a hemorrhoid."
"Sex would be great right now honey, but you see, I have a swollen painful purple thing inside my asshole that feels like Satan’s pitchfork when I show any sign of exertion."

I woke up today at about twelve p.m. I had a late night so I shouldn’t have awakened until about 1:30, but I felt a peculiar stress in my ass. I knew immediately what it was but paid no attention. I have had this little bastard since I was eighteen, but it was just an embarrassing characteristic of my anus that I ignored because…
A) It didn’t hurt.
B) I assumed it was part of growing up. Just like puberty and genital warts.

Everyone in my immediate family has had (or currently has) hemorrhoids. The women have them mostly from pregnancy, although my aunt has never had a child and sites hemorrhoids as part of her disparity. At any rate I was raised listening to most of them bitch about their asses during my childhood. My father, for instance, had a particularly nasty bunch removed surgically and was basically crippled during the healing process. My most vivid memory of this is when he was sitting down on a chair in my Grandparents living room and my grandfather was calling him to the kitchen for some trivial task. My mother became angry and said out loud ‘Doesn’t he understand he has hemorrhoids?"

But hey, they’re old, right? Ass pains don’t occur till your much older and even when they do, you accept it because you’re old. Wrong. I’m 21, almost 22 and today I woke up with a giant hemorrhoid.
I had had pain in that region for a fair amount of time but it usually passed quickly and without any need for medication. Today was different. I noticed that as I started to walk around my house it was persistent and nagging. I let my fingers crawl down to my unmentionable regions and found that through some miracle of evolution my once benign and comical ass plum had turned into an industrial strength hemorrhoid.

I was alarmed by this but even more alarmed by the fact that my bowels were crying out for a movement. I made my way to the restroom and sat down. Per usual, I applied strength to my stomach muscles urging my refuse to find it’s way out of my body. That’s about the time when I realized that if I applied any further pressure the swollen demon attached to my rectum would burst with all the might of a blood-filled atom bomb. Like a frightened soldier I retreated and reconsidered my next move in the war of fecal evacuation. Everything went silent and for a moment the hypochondriac in me pleaded with me to tie my robe and plan my next move more carefully.

But nature took its course. As luck would have it, the previous nights dietary intake consisted of a 40 ounce bottle of Bud Light and a bag of ‘Flamin’ Hot’ Bakenettes (Pork rinds) so my excrement slid out very quickly and with a bust like effect. I did write that these were ‘Flamin’ hot’ correct? Yes, well, I’m sad to report that because of this I suddenly had the sensation of Grade-A napalm carving its cheerful path on my afflicted ass.
After that unfortunate incident I decided it was time for a shower. This proved to be good for my butt. My fingers again found their way to my crowded cave of pain and discovered that the actual hemorrhoid began on the outside of my ass but continued onward into my ass like any good soldier would.

I refused to believe I had a hemorrhoid at such a young age. I decided to ignore it like my other ailments (bad hearing, a mysterious pain in my abdomen, and a gleefully awful case of alcoholism). As the day progressed, however I found that this coping ability that I thought so useful was not to be available.

My ass hurt. I sat down, and it hurt. I got up and it hurt. Mediocre tasks such as getting a drink of water became laborious and painful. I decided that one way or the other my can was telling me it needed help.
I called my girlfriend Trinity and told I would be picking her up shortly. When I arrived I found her sitting on a washing machine sucking down Newcastle’s and cigarettes…at first I was irritated. After all, I had a burst blood vessel in my ass, and I needed her to understand this and take care of me. But after a few moments of consideration I realized that her condition was ideal for my plight. In her state of mind I could explain to her my problem with little embarrassment and emotional upheaval.

I was incorrect. Her laughter permeated my ears akin to music, only it was the kind of music that you hate and wish you had never heard.
She told me that I needed ‘ass-cream’ and that I should get this immediately. There was a problem however. See, I am recently unemployed, thus, no money for ass-cream. My two options were to either allow her to pay for my ass-cream or to tell my parents that I needed ass-cream. Both of these things were a violation to my strict sense of pride.
I decided on letting my parents in on the fact that I had a hemorrhoid. After all, it runs in the family, right? Now I’m one of you, right?
"Have you been constipated? What’s someone you’re age doing with a hemorrhoid?"
My mother had a way with words.

After the initial humiliation had subsided I found myself thankful that my parents we’re willing to buy my butthole panacea. In Wal-Mart my mother handed me two products; a simple cream to cure "itching" and "general irritation" or a suppository. She alluded to the fact that I should choose what is best…an internal or external medication, therefore allowing me some sort of shred of dignity. Her kind attempt at allocating me privacy failed as I handed her the two packages and suggested we purchase both. This, from the look on her face, was not an option. I opted for the cream, it seemed all-purpose and was all that I was aware existed. I was bound to its familiarity. May I note that both products were off-brand. In my maturity I recognize that buying off-brand peas are okay. Buying off-brand Froot Loops (Fruity-O’s) are okay, but buying an off-brand hemorrhoid medication is not. You will be sticking this product up your ass, I would at least like to see ‘Johnson & Johnson’ on the tube. In her defense I will say that if I was shelling out the cash for someone else’s butthole medicine I too would only spring for the Wal-Mart brand.

Upon returning home I found myself standing alone in my bathroom (Alone despite Trinity’s pleading to "Let her watch".) I held in my hand the off-brand tube of medicine and a unique contraption that screws onto the tube. To my horror I realized that this component of the ass-cream was meant to go up my ass and evenly dispense the goo. It acts very much like a Play-Doh device that squirts small tubes of a doughy substance in all directions.

I decided not to think about it, and plunged it into my ass, expecting a disturbing homoerotic experience; I was surprised to find that it made virtually no pain (or pleasure) at all. I squeezed until I was sure that it had done it duty and then retrieved it from out of my nether regions.

Nothing. But the strange device told me that indeed, goo had been dispensed and I was suddenly faced with the uncomfortable task of cleaning up. Let me ask you, the reader, a question; When you were a child and playing with Play-Doh, how did you clean the little squishing device after a day of fun? With your fingers right? Well, this thing is too small to put your fingers into. I tried running hot water over the nozzle. Nothing. The only reasonable remedy for this problem seemed to be blowing through the top of the nozzle which for some strange reason I briefly considered even though this had just moments ago been up my ass.
I washed the nozzle put the cap back on without making an attempted to clean it. Who cares? It’s not like you share your ass medicine with a friend.

"Hemorrhoids, Bobby? That’s too bad…here try my half used tube of Wal-Mart brand ass-cream. Enjoy."
I was starting to feel better. The cream did indeed work…for about five minutes. Soon I was in pain again and realized that unless I wanted to spend the next few days with a tube of ass-cream up my butt I needed another remedy.

So I consulted my good friend the Internet.
I discovered that I needed to spend time laying down (not sitting) and avoid standing up. This was good news as I generally avoid standing up whether or not I have throbbing ass-larvae sucking away at my soul.
Trinity and me enjoyed a mediocre Saturday night (Saturday is ‘Our day’ and we tend to stay away from our busy social schedule, attending to Television and rented films.)

So now It’s 4:30 a.m. and here I am. Still a little drunk and nursing a pain in the ass. How did I get here...why has god forsaken me? Well after dropping Trinity off at home I decided to consult alcohol for this malady (I consult it for many others and find it usually works, no matter how badly it affects the valuable emotional relationships I have with loved ones.)
I pulled up at the 7-11 around 1:45 and decided to stay in my truck seeing that I spied a high school aquaitance inside and didn’t want to hobble around like Igor infront of her. I finally made my purchase and got home to begin drinking when I noticed my pet mouse had perished. In my sorrow I drank 40 ounces of beer and then began working on a coffin for Bob (My mouse).

I constructed the coffin out of a box of Little Debbie treats, after doing that I went to my bible to find a good verse on the subject of death to inscribe on Bobs coffin. As I opened the bible I found that there was as section to write in a marriage. I wrote down the marriage of some dear friends that had gotten married recently on September 14th 2001, three days after the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks. After that I saw there was a section for deaths. I wrote down the name of a friend that had died on September 26th 2001. I realized at this moment that life has a lot of pain in it, and as far as I’m concerned we don’t need hemorrhoids. Car accidents? Hey, they happen. Murder? That’s been going on since the dawn of time. Cancer? That gets most of us. But why hemorrhoids?

It’s just something that should not be a part of the life we live. So now here I am. Placing my dead mouse in a coffin made of cardboard, tossing an empty bottle of beer in the trash and doing my best not to move to much. I’m starting to realize that all that golden rule nonsense they indoctrinate you with as a child makes some sense. Do what you can to make life good for yourself and others, because most likely, a hemorrhoid is something you’re gonna get one way or the other and it’s just going to piss you off if your life sucks when you get it.

© Andrew Stuart September 2003
bluedragonfilms@adelphia.net

(Surgery is the ONLY thing that works, believe me, been there, bled over the T-Shirt: Ed)

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