I was thinking of Honore de Balzac the other day, odd perhaps, but that is what a club is for, to have the time to examine different paths. A huge man with enormous appetites who rarely bathed, Balzac wrote 12 hours a day, every day. His masterpiece, The Human Comedy, deals in novel form with France as a sort of “people-watching” nation in the post-Napoleonic times in which he lived.
Strangely he was a pauper who, in spite of his odiferous scent, had hundreds of lovers, who I can only guess were drawn to his genius. I mean, I bathe all the time but am rarely rewarded with a look, so it must be genius that the women were after. Anyway, many of the women brought gifts, money and food, but still he had to move many times to escape his debts.
I was thinking of him because he died early, at 51 years of age, mostly because of his disgusting eating habits. He ate mostly by way of his knife and hands, consuming huge amounts of food whenever it was available: Duck, mutton, partridge, fish along with vast desserts at a single sitting. Although I am much older that Balzac when he snuffed it, I may have had a touch of what did him in, I over-ate.
As most of you know, I like to cut a slim figure about the club in my double-breasted blazer. To do so, I push back from the table after sufficient food has passed my full lips and never more than that.
However the club chef managed to break my will power last month with lamb cutlets accompanied by a hand-made “Up-Island” mint sauce. I could not get enough, you see, plus his lightly browned roast potatoes — I ask you, what could one do but gorge?
I was fine for awhile, managing to finally get comfy in my chair by the window so I could read several newspapers. Then it came as I suspected it might, as did several taunt gold buttons holding my jacket tight: A deep explosion below decks, as it were, in partnership with an unforgiving sword thrust of pain followed by another depth charge.
I gasped loudly, bringing severe looks from nearby mems disturbed from their crossword puzzles by my outburst. However their censorious attitude turned to alarm as they watched me slip from my green wing back in a faint.
When I came around in the hands of the Royal Jubilee Hospital’s best brains, it was determined that I might have done damage to the large intestine by causing myself diverticulitis, a disease in which small holes appear due to poor lifestyle choices, in my case 25 lamb cutlets, scores of roasted potatoes, club raisin pie and several glasses of port.
The 15-year-old doctor (they are all so young, have you noticed?) said he was going to scope me to get to the bottom (no pun intended) of my problem. I made the mistake of asking what he was talking about so he showed me the instrument in question. When I regained consciousness, I wondered if it were a little large for such a small kingdom. I was assured by a 12- year-old nurse that they had made great strides in this sort of thing, and that a hose blowing air was a part of it, so as to gently enlarge said kingdom, making the procedure far less uncomfortable than previously noted.
I was unsure until my wife Kitty arrived and said loudly that I would be happy to be seen to. I acquiesced thoughtfully while turning a pale yellow.
However, first began the exercise before the procedure that they had conveniently left out, the purge. Industrial substances were mixed into innocent glasses of water, then it was only a matter of moments before my eyes crossed in confusion and alarm, and I was off, in a Bolt-like sprint for the WC.
In one unfortunate incident when the lav was not free, I was forced to break in and throw a veteran out because he was singing to his forlorn appendage in order to go wee, and was taking too long. I was a man with a message: “Gangway.”
What a day that was. However by the next afternoon I had lost six pounds and all inhibition and was lying starkers on my bed waiting for whatever the Children’s Crusade had for me.
I must say the actual event was an anti-climax and went off painlessly as advertised, for which I am ever so grateful. The doctors looked at my injury and pronounced that I must stop over-indulging my greed at the table, plus give up peanuts and popcorn as small pieces of these foods lodged into the little holes my large intestine now had. Live moderately in the future and I would have a future. I blinked “Yes.”
I urge everyone to get a checkup involving a scope, for while it may be uncomfortable it is mostly in your mind and as I said, it is painless. It could save your life. So please do it and don’t eat like Balzac.
Copyright Major’s Corner 2014
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