Stand down until I give the signal.

I actually learned something watching television last night. I know that's rare, but once in a while, it does actually happen.

While I was watching 24, I learned that this guy lives and works in my colon.



I call him Jack Bauell, and I believe him to be the Director of CMC, or Colon Mission Control. His job, from what this commercial told me, is to monitor my overall colonic environment, and if anything goes amiss, call out the troops, and by troops I mean some sort of new, high-powered liquid Imodium AD.

As you can tell from the picture, he has the latest in colon monitoring technology -- a real-time holographic image of the actual bowel he is sitting in, and a buttload of other equipment, so to speak, that can sense the seismic pre-shocks that indicate an oncoming bout of diarrhea, and head it off at the pass.

He is, basically, the top field operator my intestines have, and he runs a tight ship. He is all guts and glory -- a tough, no-nonsense, take no prisoners, thinking man's soldier, and I am thankful he has taken up residence in my lower abdomen.

He's no hard-nosed grunt -- far from it. He's exactly the kind of smooth operator you need watching your backside when you're 75 feet underwater in the Florida keys, or rafting down the Colorado river, and that undercooked ground beef and bean burrito you had for lunch decides to gear up a level 3 (or god forbid, level 4) case of the runs.*

I can only assume that after his shift in the hot seat, he gets to go home to a nice little place in the suburbs -- probably somewhere up around my esophogus -- that he shares with his wife, two kids and his dog Paco.

So here's to you, Mr. Jack Bauell, Director of Colon Mission Control. Yours is a dirty and much under-appreciated job. However, thanks to prime-time television your cover is blown, and I can now properly recognize your contribution to society.

Have a beer in me, and relax. You've earned it, my friend.

By the way, I'll be having the hot wings for lunch tomorrow. So get some sleep tonight.

*They tell you on the commercial that he is responding to a level three case of diarrhea, which, judging by the way CMC gets tossed around, is pretty damn violent. I am guessing that he lets his subordinates deal with the ones and twos. Also, I am pretty sure that anything higher than the level 3 that they illustrate on the commercial would mean he would be running CMC from the septic tank shortly thereafter.