Return Of The Blogger

To all my regular readers (all three of you) I announce my return to the blogosphere. For the past several weeks my attention has been diverted from blogging to settling into a new home and acquainting myself with a new town. The move itself was a traumatic nightmare the likes of which I hope never to repeat as long as I live. That notwithstanding, my family and I came out of the experience relatively unscathed and are presently enjoying the pleasures of domestic tranquility.

That being said, I now move on to presenting this week's post:

A Hole In One

I've often wondered what prompts medical students to choose proctology as their specialty. Is there something truly wondrous about the rectum we as laymen simply aren't privy to? Is it possible the anus, a seemingly mundane body orifice could be some magical portal leading beyond the boundaries of ordinary reality into a vast plateau of strange and wonderful delights the likes of which have never been experienced and could not possibly be comprehended by the untrained masses? One can only speculate. Of course the acrid stench wafting from the average rectum conjures images of a very dissimilar sort; a virtual bubbling witches brew of caustic gastric sewage eating away at the very cauldron containing it comes specifically to mind. Despite this objectionable olfactory distraction however, we do not appear to be plagued by a shortage of qualified proctologists. That certainly leaves me in a quandary as to what could possibly be so appealing about a career involving the insertion of one's finger inside a total stranger's fetid stool duct. Perhaps proctology is a default profession, the type one "falls into" following an unsuccessful attempt at mastering another more challenging medical discipline. It is said, "Those who can't teach, teach gym"; a similar adage may apply in this instance such as, "If you can't sew it up, plug it up".