Colonoscopies aren’t fun, but they’re fun to make fun of. And since I prepped for my first one on Father’s Day, I can officially make all the jokes I want. Yes, sh!t happens.

But we’re going to have to go further than that, to a time when my Dad parked the rental car in La Jolla, CA, under a shady tree. He was so proud of his parking job because it was the only tree, and he went out of his way to park there.

And, since it was the only tree, a colony of birds had no other place to go but to congregate there. Who knew they also liked the color maroon? They had a sh!t fest of their own making all over the station wagon. Couldn’t they have picked any other car? Dad refused to wash it; it was a rental, and he wouldn’t dream of wasting the money, so imagine us driving down the LA freeway!

This story got a lot of mileage that year on the Nike coach’s trip. And, probably who laughed the most was Sonny Vaccaro.

Yes, the Sonny Vaccaro, who reminds me more of Danny DeVito than Matt Damon. You have most likely never heard of him, but you will soon. Matt Damon and Ben Affleck are making a movie about how he was a shoe salesman who got Michael Jordan to sign with Nike. Matt Damon will be playing Sonny and Ben Affleck will be Phil Knight.

I’ve met a lot of “famous” people in my life. It wouldn’t be surprising if someone were to make a movie about any of them, but Sonny?

I would never have believed it. But since Damon went ahead and wrote the script, and now they’re shooting the movie, wouldn’t they have thought to have consulted me?

I wrote my sister, the only person who could truly understand my state of mind, “We could have written that movie!”

She said, “Maybe we better think real good about the other people from our childhood.”

I never wrote a blog post about Sonny, but I did write about our Nike vacations, especially when I bowled with Michael Jordan. I bet that tidbit won’t be in the movie either.

My friends want a movie viewing party so I can make my commentary as we watch–not that I have that much to say about Sonny, but maybe when the movie comes out, I’ll get nostalgic again and wonder why they didn’t include those Nike trips.

Meanwhile, returning to our original topic, I only got on it because of the colonoscopy, but the children’s book “Someday A Bird Will Poop On You” got me through cancer. Sue Salvi wrote it in 2018, and I received it as a gift on October 14, 2020. It changed my life, and then, as with everything cancer-related, I forgot about it.

But the colonoscopy got me thinking about cancer again. It was hard to lay back in the hospital chair, get pricked, have anesthesia, and not think about the anxiety-ridden parts of the last couple of years. I got sucked into the flood of those sad thoughts and lost all my sense of humor. So I cried and listened to the jokester in the partitioned-off section across from me.

He said, “Is this gonna be all over the internet?”

And the doctor said, “Not unless you put it there.”

Their laughter reminded me to lighten up. Turn that frown upside down and make life sunny again.

Sometimes a joke, a children’s book about birds pooping on you, or a Sonny-blast-from-the-past can turn the world sunny again.

So here we are; when life throws us lemons (or sh!t), whatever you want to call it, we can always laugh and make a good story about it.

P.S. If you’d like to read about those Nike trips, the part that should have made the movie but won’t, click here. Flying High with Nike, Air Jordan and Bowling