Death By Content: Episode 4 — A Mole In The Brown House

INTRO: 

Truth be told, I really don’t feel like writing. I’m exhausted by the ocean of shit we all are dealing with right now. There’s so much BAD news that writing in the name of satire and comedy feels a bit misplaced. That being said, writing is something that helps me feel normal, a feeling that’s in short supply nowadays. If you feel that now is not the time for outraged hyperbole and butt jokes, I wouldn’t blame you. But for me, butt jokes crack me up. And maybe…it’ll help some of you feel normal as well. So here we go. 

DISCLAIMER: I rarely offer disclaimers, but I feel like I should mention that in order to have this post be worth writing, that I will be required to disclose some fairly personal (well, as personal as I can get while operating under a pseudonym) and graphic details. If subject matter such as describing bowel movements and things of that nature upset you…maybe sit (or dare I say “squat”) this one out. Still here? Don’t say I didn’t warn ya. 

When was the last time you discovered a new mole? I’ll tell you the last time I discovered one. I was wiping my ass. As is the case with most people barring nut jobs and crack heads, this is something I do fairly regularly (sorry, NOT Sorry.) So when I noticed that construction on a new mole had been started on my taint (or is it banus? I’m not really positive on the terminology here), I panicked. First thought — WHAT LUCK. Seeing as I’m not an acrobat, yogi, or Marilyn Manson, I had no way of observing the situation down there. 

So, what did I do? I took action. Because I’m an American. I realized that I finally got what all those “taken with an iPhone” outdoor ads were about and started to get busy. Sepia filters, flashes…I even threw in some brown steel. 

Let me pause here for a second. Have you ever tried to take a picture of your own ass? If you haven’t… Please STOP WHAT YOU’RE DOING AND GO DO THIS IMMEDIATELY. Not only is it exhilarating and disgusting, but it will allow you to ride shotgun with me on this journey we are about to partake on. HOMEWORK 1: Take a selfie of your banus. 

The human body is not designed for that type of selfie. The few that did come out only worried me further. I can definitely see the mole. It’s there. And through the fuzzy/blurry/furry/flurry I have never seen things more clearly. I am in my 30s. And I am dying. Banal-Melanoma. The rarest kind of skin cancer. My ass, which has spent exactly 0 seconds in the sun in the past 30 years… has cancer. 

When you’re faced with your own demise. You look for answers. So, amidst a fit of panic, I did the only logical thing: I asked the internet. My first search was pretty simple. “How to tell if my mole is cancerous.” HOMEWORK 2: TYPE THAT PHRASE INTO GOOGLE. It rains images of cancerous moles on you like a vengeful tempest. Somewhere in a galaxy far, far away, someone else took a picture very similar to my ass-mole selfie, and decided….fuck, I better put this on the internet. That way someone else can find it and be comforted by the fact that they are dying. Thank you for your service. You are a hero. 

At this point, you’re fully down the rabbit corn hole (I’m really just writing this piece for me, people). The first page of search results is page after page of resources built solely for the purpose of telling people whether or not they have cancer. It’s really up to you how you interpret the results. At first glance, you go “whew—I’m fine.” But then, you keep reading and find out that itchiness, or waking up thirsty could be a sign of cancer. 60 minutes later, you’re pretty sure you’re dying. 

BUT. Am I dying enough to make a doctor’s appointment in the midst of a health crisis? Just so I could Zoom into a room (IMAGINE THE CUSTOM BACKGROUND POSSIBILITIES HERE)  with a stranger that I’m supposed to trust because of 8 years at state school, REMOVE MY TROUSERS, and say the following sentence while performing the following physical act: “ Yeah, so I have this mole on an….area between my testacles and anus and here… just… let me just lean back and bicycle my legs up so we can let the professionals decide what’s really happening. I know this is tough to see on the computer so I sent some photos taken on the new iPhone 11 as well. Does that sound like a fun Friday morning to you? Because it sounds like “Eh—it’s probably not cancer” to me. 

So what did I do? I didn’t do anything. Well I should elaborate, I didn’t do anything different than what I’d usually do…which is nothing. I worried, researched, discovered I was probably fine but I could be dying, and then I just decided to move on. Was that a good decision? Probably not. But it is what it is. And I partially blame the internet. I used to go to the Doctor. Then I got the internet. It knows everything. There’s a  website named Web MD! It’s practically a computer doctor! That site is a pile of shit… 

The internet is an ocean of information, but it’s often impossible to tell what’s reliable. Instead, clickbait and shock value call you to the rocks like siren songs serenading ancient mariners. Oil spills and blood from predatory feeding frenzies cloud one’s clarity as they try to navigate through the endless abyss. It’s a place where one can easily get lost, left to choose between madness and dehydration. I’d probably take the former.  I probably don’t have banal melanoma. I probably don’t have coronavirus, diabetes, colitis, or the variety of ailments that I often worry await me at dawn with the guillotine drawn. But even if I did, I can tell you one thing for certain. The fucking internet could never tell me.