To all those who think I'm full of it, I'm not.
And I can prove it.
Somewhere in a small medical room near here, there is even video evidence should this debate end up in court. I am an empty vessel, clean as a whistle, good to go for another few years.
But I have no intention, thank you, of putting my butt up on Facebook for all the world to see.
That, however, is what the Colorectal Cancer Association of Canada is asking people to do this Wednesday in a campaign they are calling "Buttmob" that will bring an end, no pun intended, to a solid month of making Canadians more aware of what has become the second-leading cause of cancer deaths.
Those who don't care for their own butts are invited to pick a "stand-in" image at www.getyourbuttseen.ca/
Getting people to smile about something as personal as their own rear end is not a bad thing. Colon Cancer Canada uses "We're behind your behind" as its slogan. Virginia gastroenterologist Dr. Patricia Raymond gives comical speeches as "The Devine Ms Butt Meddler" to get people to at least open up their minds to opening up their sphincters. And there are numerous websites devoted to jokes about getting a colonoscopy: "Are we there yet?"; "Let me know if you find my dignity"; "Could you write a note for my wife saying that my head is in fact not up there?"
Jokes help get to the seriousness of the situation. Some 22,000 Canadians will be diagnosed this year with colorectal cancer. More than 9,000 will die from it. Yet a stunning 90 per cent of this cancer is curable if caught early enough - and the only way that will happen is through the rather undignified screening process.
This was my third time wearing the charming backless hospital gown and waiting while an assembly line of bums went in for the obligatory scan by garden-hose-with-a-camera. It being a different hospital with different procedures, this time included sedation. I don't recall a thing. It was like being back in the Sixties.
My brothers and I get it because there is family history. Sister Ann - a much-loved fact checker at Maclean's magazine whom Allan Fotheringham always called "my guardian angel" - died of it at age 50. Her gift to her siblings is that we get checked regularly.
As one brother puts it, "The 'prep' is much worse than the procedure" - meaning the 24 hours when you dissolve and drink a couple of packets of magic powder, can't eat anything and wouldn't dare venture more than five strides from a toilet.
For obvious reasons, "screening" has long been a tough sell for the medical community. People do, it turns out, die from embarrassment.
With all the bad publicity that hockey has had over heads these past weeks, it is a delight, then, to report a story about bums that truly inspires.
The Windsor Spitfires, last year's Memorial Cup champions, used their March home games to get the message out. The players, including Taylor Hall, the probable No. 1 NHL draft pick come June, all wore uniforms with a "Colon Cancer Check" crest on the front - the signed jerseys all to be auctioned off at the end of the campaign.
At breaks in the play, Spitfires general manager Warren Rychel came on the scoreboard, telling the fans to "Get checked," over video showing Rychel checking various NHL superstars during his playing days with the Los Angeles Kings.
Between periods, local pharmacists had information booths where they provided free the fecal occult blood test kits that allow for a simpler screening to be done in the privacy of one's own home. A positive test here would call for a full colonoscopy later.
Rychel figures the message was hitting the perfect target group: the team's 5,000 seasons-ticket holders, mostly men aged 40 to early 60s.
"We were aiming for the fan base," agrees Dr. John Day, head of the Erie St. Clair Regional Cancer Centre that worked with Cancer Care Ontario to set up the program with the Spitfires. But Day also came to the dressing room and talked to the young players about the devastating effects of this cancer, including the names of several hockey personalities who have been struck by it.
"These kids know what tragedy is," says Rychel, referring to the team's loss of its captain, Mickey Renaud, who collapsed and died at home two years ago.
"The knowledge those kids get will stay with them the rest of their lives."
Day says the hope is that one day people will be able to talk about getting screened without "turning red" - and he's hoping that the Spitfires' successful campaign can spread right across junior hockey ranks just as the NHL's Hockey Fights Cancer program has raised awareness of screening for breast cancer.
As for the 42-year-old Rychel, his team's campaign even reached an unexpected target: himself.
He's just made arrangements to be screened.
"I got three kids," he says. "I want to live as long as I can."
Roy MacGregor