Sit on the toilet and have a bowel movement into the container.

So went the first line of Step 4 in the Cologuard instructions. Being a man of a certain age, my doctor ordered the test to make sure I wasn’t dying of colon cancer or, if I am dying of colon cancer, to judge how close the icy grip of death might be. Cologuard was to be used in lieu of putting me under and running a camera into my body so, while labor intensive, I considered the do-it-yourself method a fair tradeoff.

All the items from the “kit” were laid out on the kitchen island before I methodically worked my way through the instructions. Hovering over them with a cup of coffee in one hand and a glass of water in the other, #4 was my favorite step thus far.

Remember, don’t overthink it.
We need a stool sample that looks like what you usually have during your bowel movements.

The last thing I wanted to do was overthink it, although I wasn’t exactly sure what that meant. Can one overthink pooping? I suppose one can. Maybe. I tend to operate from the premise “When you gotta go, you gotta go.” Plus, whatever was to be dropped into that container would be a reflection of whatever I’d eaten the day before, and I, like most people, don’t eat exactly the same thing every day.

I was overthinking it.

Just do it, I told myself. Everybody poops. Move on.

If you need size references, look at the bottle of liquid preservative in your kit. The sample should be bigger than the bottle’s cap but not bigger than the bottle itself.

Size references? Are we still talking about my bowel movement, or is something else at play? I eyeballed the referenced container. It was rectangular and had some girth, but what was really intimidating was that I was supposed to make sure the size of my BM did not exceed the size of the bottle. I found the idea a tad confounding. Was I supposed to stop pooping when I judged the sample size was close to exceeding the maximum allowable? And, if that was the case, how was I to manage that? I supposed I could train my camera phone on my ass, then angle the screen in such a way as to make the poop visible to me.

I decided to let the idea stew.

Unscrew the probe from the tube. Use the probe to scrape your stool sample.

Probe? There’s a probe?

I examined the items I’d laid out and identified something that looked like a test tube. The test tube contained a clear liquid and something that looked like a pointy Q-tip. Upon closer examination, I was assured that this was, indeed, the probe referenced in the instructions. This is what I would be using to “scrape” my “sample,” much the way a child uses a stick to poke a mud cake.

Completely cover the grooves on the tip of the probe with stool.

Okay. Now we’re getting somewhere. Not only will I be scraping my stool with the probe, I will also make sure the probe is completely covered in poop. It seemed my sample and I were really going to get to know each other, in a deep, intimate way.

Pour the bottle of liquid preservative into the container.

At this point I started thinking there might exist a stool archive, run by the government. I imagined a giant warehouse under a mountain, somewhere out west, lined with shelves. On those shelves, organized along the lines of the Dewey Decimal System, were thousands, perhaps millions, of samples. The whole warehouse is managed by one guy who commands the robots that move the samples around.

Nobody knows why the archive exists.

It’s all very hush-hush.

I hope I’m wrong about that.

It’s OK if the stool sample isn’t completely covered.

Covered with what?

Oh, right. The “preservative.”

I assumed that directive came right from the boss of the mountain archive. He or she would, after all, be responsible for stool integrity and preservation.

Screw the lid back onto the container.

This instruction seemed self-evident, but must have been necessary, most likely because some jackass mailed an open container full of poop back to the lab. Or, perhaps, the writer of the instructions had the wherewithal to anticipate that such jackasses exist, and did his/her best to stave off ensuing, smelly disasters.
My lid was nice and tight.

Having read, reread and, finally, internalized the instructions for obtaining a proper sample, I placed the container in the “bracket.” The “bracket,” by the way, is a single-use marvel of engineering, designed solely to hover the stool container at the optimal height above the toilet water and below your ass.

Bracket and container in place, I waited for nature to take its course.

And waited.

The time arrived. The water and coffee had worked their magic.

The first thing I noticed, upon taking the throne, was that the top lip of the container was digging into my cheeks. Not horribly. I mean, there was no blood. Just enough to be uncomfortable. I shifted around the seat trying to make it so, but to no avail.

The moment of truth approaching, I decided to hover, the way women do in public restrooms. On the positive side, this relieved the discomfort. On the negative side, it threw off my aim. Not too much, but enough, and I didn’t know it. At least not right away.

Believing the job to be complete, I carefully turned to examine the result of my efforts, and found the sample resting precariously on the lip of the container.

This was a problem the instructions didn’t cover.


For efficiency, I broke down the problem into two parts. I was the first. The container was the second. Enough said.

Exceedingly happy to have completed my medical assignment, I packed the tightly closed container in the return box and contacted the pick-up service.

Due to a prior engagement, I couldn’t be around for the pick-up, but I imagined the delivery person appreciated the fact the container lid was screwed on tightly.

It’s on its way to the mountain.