I want to be a poop donor.

I know, there are many more noble pursuits, grand aspirations, lofty goals. But I’m a great believer in practicality, and this is something I can actually achieve.

The idea started, as most nutty ones do, at book club. I don’t know how the subject came up, but we took one of our many digressions from the work we were discussing and ended up talking about gut flora. Having discussed the health, maintenance, and benefits of same at great length, we eventually segued into a conversation about, well, poop. (Trust book club to find the gutter on any subject.) From there? A short hop to the topic of fecal transplants.

“Fecal what?” said one of my friends, disgust contorting her face.

Fecal transplants. Yes, it’s what it sounds like: putting healthy poop into the intestines of people with unhealthy gut flora. The healthy flora take over, like little intestinal Mormons converting tiny gut heathens. It really works. (Unlike Mormonism.) And they’re doing it more and more.

That’s the long and short of it. The details? No one knew. And no one wanted to.

We moved on. But days later I got to thinking about the conversation. Fecal transplants, huh? That must mean there are fecal donors. People with stellar intestinal flora. Who might those people be? Could they be…me?

Not to brag, but my gut is an all-star. It’s a fucking rock. If it were an athlete it would be Michael Jordan. If it were a warrior it would be Genghis Kahn. How do I know this? Two ways: one, I never, ever get sick. Two, I’m regular. I make the Staten Island Ferry look erratic.

Due to this, I’ve become rather passionate about the flora living in my intestine. I take pride in them, just as I would a prize herd of heifers. If my stomach were a barn there would be blue ribbons hanging from the stalls. As it is, I hang ribbons in my mind. My flora accept them, nodding sagely. They’ve been living antibiotic-free, eating well, and enjoying a low-stress environment for years now. They’re perfect specimens, every one of them. Coats shiny, eyes bright, hooves held high. Such as it is.

So when, recently, a gal from my book club sent out a link to a website called The Power of Poop I clicked it right away. The article in question was about do-it-yourself fecal transplants–a process that sounded both disgusting and Byzantine. But there was a link for potential clinical donors, and I found myself clicking it. I seemed to fit the criteria. Maybe I wasn’t crazy after all. Perhaps someone really could benefit from the rare qualities that my micro-livestock possess.

I decided to find out.

Look, maybe I’m nuts. Buy it’s better than drinking your own urine, right? Stay tuned. And hopefully open-minded. (;