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Royal Flush

by Melissa Coleman
Aspen Magazine
Original article (pdf)

Summer is here and you need a change. A haircut or teeth cleaning won’t do. You want to purge the excesses of life in Aspen from your body once and for all – the burgers at Silver City Grill, the Food & Wine tent samples, and especially all those Mudslides at the J-Bar.

You see and article about Princess Diana. Seems she’s been correcting her royal excesses with colonic hydrotherapy, a process that could be described as a queen-sized enema, of sorts.

A colonic! – herein lies the answer, and with a regal recommendation to boot.

You think you might have to book a discreet flight to England, like someone getting a nose job, until a co-worker tells you she got a colonic from Jackie Parker, a colon therapist at Aspen Health Works.

Suddenly it seems everyone is into this – there’s the local shrink who’s been doing it for 15 years, a beautician who refuses to talk about it, and a woman who wants to make room to gorge herself at a chocolate tasting event.

You get Jackie on the phone. “So you do this often?”

“Sometimes I do five to seven a day. I’ve had around 350 patients.”

“How does it work?”

“There’s a machine that regulates the water..” she begins.

“Dear me,” you say, starting to lose your nerve. “I’d better just schedule an appointment.” You don’t tell her your stomach needs to look as flat as Princess Di’s when you’re done.

The colonic room is clean and friendly. A poster on the wall shows the coiled mass of the small and large intestines, which if stretched out would be 30 feet long. Below the illustration, words in bold print admonish: “Civilized life means an artificial life; civilized people living in a civilized manner and eating civilized foods, cannot in the very nature of things have a truly healthy colon.” Feeling far from civilized, you lie back and prepare to be flushed.

Jackie talks in a soothing tone as she works, like a doctor about to give a shot. You turn sideways and think of Chevy Chase in Fletch when he sings “Moon River” to distract himself from the foreign object being inserted into the place where things usually go out.

“I’m going to let the water in now,” Jackie says. “Tell me when you can’t take it anymore.” You feel a pressure, something like really bad gas that intensifies until you gasp, and just as quickly it is released. You are both silent as you watch the debris flow out through the lighted tube.

“One man lost 50 pounds,” she says.

The hour is up and Jackie is sending you on your way. You feel lighter and very thirsty. Your wallet feels lighter, too, as it relieves itself of $195 to cover the recommended three sessions. You drink two bottles of Evian and still feel thirsty. You have to go to the bathroom a lot, and everyone in your office seems to be aware of that fact.

It’s a week later and your daily habits have returned to normal. There’s a guilty sense of pleasure, like twisting a Q-tip in the illicit inner ear, that is untainted by the fact that your ear (and colon) probably has no need of such obsessive probings. But you do feel fresher – quite similar, in fact, to how you feel after having your teeth cleaned. You decide to celebrate over a burger at the Silver City Grill.

© Aspen Magazine, 1996