Colonoscopy, Cheap Cars, and Honey

The stories in this column are true. Averett lives a dull life in rural Southside Virginia with his wife Management, two children and a rotating assortment of goats, dogs, cats, snakes and other local fauna.

As soon as I hit the half-century mark all sorts of medical types and friends started recommending that I get a colonoscopy. At first I was fine with it. After all, I don’t care what kind of car I drive as long as it is cheap and it gets me there and gets me home most of the time.

As usual they treated me like I am an idiot. “What we need to do is examine your colon.” Well fine, if you ever find a colon in anything I write examine it all you like. I am a big fan of semi-colons but colons just seem like a double period trying to take the place of a comma. The only place I use colons are in times.

There seems to be a rash of folks getting their colons examined. Everywhere I go some guy about my age is talking about getting one.  Here’s one: Examine it, color it and name it. I don’t care what you do with it; it is the only one I will ever use.

The medical types were not happy. It seemed important that I let them scopy my colon. I told them they could scopy it all they like; they could even take pictures if it made them happy.

That’s when things got ugly. We will not discuss what they intended to do, the pictures they wanted to take, how they intended to do it or how they expected me to study for it.

Speaking of cars, I am not happy with my van. I’ve only had it for five years and have only put on about 100,000 miles and it is pretty sick. I paid $405.73 for it and it just seems like I should get more for my money than that.

My first car cost me $25.00 and I had it for five years and never spent another penny on it. Of course I never got it running but that isn’t the point. I sold it for a reasonable profit and bought one that I did get running but never licensed, which I also sold for a reasonable profit. I am told I can at least get my $405.73 from a junkyard but that would mean I did not make a profit, which is a bad thing for a capitalist.

Last week I found out I made a great deal that really wasn’t such a great deal after all. For the past two years I have been working on setting up a little honey house. When we lost all of our bees in the 80’s I had to sell all of the equipment at a loss just to survive. Eating, (especially when you have children) is more important than making a profit, even to a capitalist.

I don’t want to have lots of bees but I do want a few hives of pets, so I have been trying to set up a little operation about a tenth of the size of what we once had. So, last month I found a honey pump on ebay. There were no dimensions or much information at all. This means it will sell cheaply which is my second favorite price surpassed only by free.

As I was making arrangements to pay I thought the shipping was excessive but sometimes that happens. Then it arrived and I was shocked. Somehow I got my tenths confused. This pump is ten times bigger than anything I ever owned. It will pump all the honey my bees can make in ten years in about ten minutes. This means I have to sell it at a reasonable profit and find a much smaller one for me to use.

Then I found a little honey-packing tank (exactly the size I need) also for my second favorite price. It is in Florida and the only issue is it needs to be picked up. Darn, don’t you just hate the idea of having to take a trip to Florida later in the winter?

Unfortunately, someone offered to deliver it for less than the cost of several tanks of gas. I really hate it when that happens.