Posting poo

Turning fifty (shiver) you imagine feeling old and wanting to sleep more, perhaps being invited on an 'over 50's' bus tour of the botanical gardens. And all this happens and more, don't worry.

But what you're somehow not prepared for, but also happens, pretty much on the very day of your birthday, is that you receive an urgent request for your poo. And how do they want your poo? They want it in the post! The poo post.

So there you are, turned fifty, which should be bad enough, having to decipher a 23-step manual on the painfully undignified business of how to collect your smelly business, being sure to put the blotting paper in the toilet not the bag, and not before the pee goes into the toilet, which must not be at the same time as the poop (!). After that, in a tearing rush lest the pooped paper sink (!!) you do some stinky excavation with a much too-thin-for-the-job stick, and when that's done, wearing your arm extensions, you courier said stinky stick and said stinky stick only into the zip-lock plastic bag provided and seal it TIGHT, before proceeding in a calm and collected fashion to the nearest poo post box, carrying your meaty envelope and trailing a string of salivating dogs, to post it to those whose job it is to receive posted poo.

Well, in theory I'm sure that's all very well and good and important to science and possibly even the saving of the planet. But in practice, it's easier said than done, and it's not all that easy said. It's also a little unfair, I think, to impose such an undignified procedure on the newly elderly. Why not instead treat us all, as a 50th birthday present, to a free doctors visit where the bulk of the operation can be handled, in every sense of the word, by a trained professional. I feel a strongly scented letter to my local member coming on.

Meanwhile, they're still waiting for my poo; I seem to have come down with a sudden and inexplicable case of chronic constipation.