Not In My Jobbie Description

I've been travelling quite a bit recently (hence no blog entries for a few weeks), and I got back to the office this week to find on my desk a form and a curious green cellophane bag with two flat receptacles contained therein. "What's this for?" I ask an office colleague. "Er... it's for poo-poo" she replied. "Yeah, right..."

But I should have known better than to think that they're winding up the token geijin. Humour isn't a big part of office life over here. What it means, in fact, is that it's time for the annual kenkou-shindan, the yearly health check-up that all employees, by law, have to undergo.

I had one last year, but as that was part of my induction process, I skipped the main company event, which was a bit like the scene where the scientists take over the house in E.T. - The Extraterrestrial. They did all the usual stuff: blood test, urine test, X-ray, sight and hearing test - normally just to prove, scientifically, that you're fat - but there was definitely no poo-poo involved. I think I would have remembered that.

This is a family blog, so maybe we shouldn't dwell on the methodology of how one obtains the sample, but other questions inevitably arise. What constitutes an analyzable quantity of poo? Do you keep it in the fridge overnight, or somewhere nice and warm? Could I get away with taking in some of Jack's, to spare myself the indignity? And can they tell the difference? ("Wise-san, we have some very good news. You appear to have the poo of a two-year-old").

So many questions, such a poor grasp of Japanese...

Sarah reckons I should take in a pair of my underpants which, while a little harsh, would be very funny. Or maybe I could enlist the help of MacDonalds' latest creation, the McCrap...

POSTSCRIPT: Well, what do you know? They threw in the barium meal too. Whoopee! So, if lining up along the corridor with a bunch of workmates all carrying cups of wee-wee wasn't an enduring enough image in its own right, I was then bunged into a rotating X-ray machine that was straight out of Brazil, while some chap barked instructions at me in broken English from behind a protective screen. "Mr Steve, turn to your right!" "Mr Steve, turn to your left.."
What a day...