Coming off a week of taking powerful antibiotics to combat sub-lingual infection from a compromised tooth, I knew there was a risk that the balance of my good gut bacteria might be equally compromised. And sure enough, about six days after I completed the prescription regimen, a familiar rumbling started up in my gut.

Three years back I had to take power antibiotics to knock out a case of cellulitis in my had that stemmed from a friendly cat nip that turned into a not-so-friendly red rash under the skin of my had. And six years ago I had a sliver in my finger that started in infection that could have cost me my middle digit on the left had. And that would not do. I need that finger to flip off asshole drivers during my cycling adventures. So I had to self-infuse liquid antibiotics for three weeks to fight that infection.

So I don’t mess around anymore when it comes to dealing with infections.

That is why I went to the doctor pronto to conduct a test for CDiff, Clostridioides difficile (Formally known as Clostridium difficile) 

CDiff is a disease of the gut that can kill you if you’re not careful. This is how the website linked above describes how it all comes about: How do Antibiotics cause C diff.? The antibiotics cause a disruption in the normal intestinal flora which leads to an over growth of C difficile bacteria in the colon. The leading antibiotics known to disrupt the normal intestinal flora, yet not limited to, are Ampicillin, Amoxicillin, Cephalosporins, Clindamycin, and the broad spectrum antibiotics.

So I stopped at the doc’s office and they gave me a big brown plastic bag with my name on it. That was my test kit for CDiff. Granted, my name was spelled with an ‘s’ in the middle of it. But given that my college cross country coach called me Cudsworth all four years, I wasn’t that insulted.

Yet I stood there and wondered. “How the hell am I gonna fill this whole bag with shit?” And that illustrates the problem with literalism in this world. And we’ll digress along those lines. Because when you’re fighting CDiff, the volume of crap coming out of you is quite prodigious. So in the fashion of a good literalist (and this is how biblical literalism “works” as well) I texted my wife and said, “Look at what I have to fill!”

She texted me back a Poop Emoji. And I told her, “I might need your help to fill this too. Maybe we can toss in some shit from our new dog Lucy. Or perhaps Chuck the dog and Bennie the Cat can help too. We can even collect some goose crap from out by the bird feeders to top it all off.” And that’s how the tradition of literalism actually works. One piles shit on top of shit until no one can tell the difference between reality and bullshit. Then you wrap it all in a brown paper bag and label it ‘ABSOLUTE TRUTH’ and dare anyone to question you because no one really wants to look inside.

Present for Donald

The same methods of bullshit work for constitutional originalism and political bullshit as well. So we filled up the whole bag with shit and mailed it off to the White House because I’m sure they need another cabinet member in the Trump administration because so many have resigned or been indicted. And sure enough, Donald Trump took one sniff and named that bag of shit the Ambassador to Shithole Countries Around the World. Because you know, it takes a real shithead to know one.

Actually, I didn’t do any of that. Because once I opened the brown paper bag given to me by the doctor’s office I found the plastic poop portal that you stick under the toilet bowl seat. Then you have to crap in the plastic bowl and transfer a portion to the plastic cup with an orange cap on it.

The value of liquidity

There was an instruction sheet in the bag that said, “Samples must be watery stool or they will be rejected.” So I sat down to do the business and out came a solid turd. I used the tongue depressor they provided (eww, I will not use that on my tongue again for sure) to transfer a bit of good old solid shit from the plastic bowl to the plastic cup and said out loud: “Shit. This will be rejected.”

It’s not that I wanted the stool sample to indicate that I had CDiff. It was the embarrassment of bothering the doctor over what turned out to be a false alarm that bugged me. I have a conscience, you see. But the doctor said no worries. “It looks like you had a solid stool. So, no CDiff.”

Okay, that’s good news I told myself. But earlier in the week my gut had really hurt and my stools were loose. So I was taking no chances. Perhaps the probiotics I’d been taking had made up the difference. I was back on the route to good health.

But I take pleasure in knowing that the rhetorical bag of shit I sent to the Trump administration was a solid commentary on the state of the nation. That POS racist/fascist/narcissist jerk is making the whole world miserable with his shitty take on reality. He’s the equivalent of CDiff in the American gut, a disease that may require a massive cleansing to rid the world of his infectious bullshit. We’ve got to hope for a cure, because this shit can’t go on forever.