How to Stop Your Dad from Putting His Colonoscopy Photos in the Family Slideshow

To stop your dad from putting his colonoscopy photos in the family slideshow, seize the laptop, hide the HDMI cable, and cut a deal with his ego before he cuts one at the reunion.

Nobody at Grandma’s 90th needs to see where the sun doesn’t shine, rendered in 4K.

Dad got his insides photographed by a licensed professional. He now considers himself a model, and his agent is your mother, who has asked to be released from her contract.

Somewhere between the beach pictures and the baby pictures, he has scheduled a slow zoom on his sigmoid colon, set to “Wind Beneath My Wings.”

The mission is simple. Keep the reunion from turning into a gastroenterology convention with potato salad.

• Build the slideshow yourself and guard the file like it holds Grandpa’s will.
• Scan every thumb drive dad hands over, especially one labeled “Vacation Pics (Inside Scoop).”
• Offer a private screening.
• Compliment his “impressive plumbing” until the fight drains out of him, which, given his week, is the only thing left to drain.

Why dad thinks his colon deserves a premiere

Blame morning television.

After Katie Couric had a colonoscopy broadcast on the Today Show in March 2000, colonoscopy rates rose 19 percent in a University of Michigan study, and the bump lasted 40 weeks.

Dad heard that story once. He decided one televised tush inspired a nation, so his 55-inch Samsung can surely inspire Aunt Carol.

He also read the famous Dave Barry colonoscopy column, where the humorist declared he had never been prouder of an internal organ.

Dad took that personally. And a little romantically.

Then there’s the suffering. The man fasted, chugged, and sat on the toilet so long his legs filed a missing persons report with the county sheriff and two local news stations.

Most men would settle for a participation trophy after that. Dad wants an Oscar for Best Supporting Rectum.

To be fair, the gastroenterologist found the most flattering angle anyone has gotten on him since the 1983 mustache, the one mom still describes as “a decision.”

How to stop your dad from putting his colonoscopy photos in the family slideshow

Seize the file. Whoever controls the slideshow controls the family.

Volunteer to build it before dad can. Smile warmly, like a hostage negotiator who has already seen the footage and needs a drink.

Store the final version on a password-protected laptop. Pick a password dad will never guess, like “fiber.”

Lock down the shared photo album too. With 71 percent of U.S. adults using Facebook, one sloppy upload sends his ascending colon ascending into your cousin’s feed, next to a pyramid scheme.

Hide the HDMI cable until showtime.

A dad without a cable is a dad without a dream, and his dream is high-definition bowel with the Ken Burns effect.

Preview the whole thing twice, alone, with the lights on and a priest on standby. Pink tunnels sneak between wedding photos the way dad sneaks a fart into a group hug.

Warning signs the colon is coming

Dads telegraph this stuff worse than a rookie poker player humming over pocket aces.

• He keeps asking if the TV “does high definition,” then winks.
• A folder on the family computer is labeled “Rear Window.”
• “Wait till you see the finale,” he says, patting his belly like it’s pregnant with content.
• He keeps rehearsing “and this is where they found the little guy,” a phrase he previously saved for polyps and for explaining his swim trunks after a cold lake.
• Mom looks tired. Not regular tired. Forty-years-of-this tired.

The prep week broke him

Picture a grown man drinking four liters of GoLytely bowel prep, a little less than a gallon of liquid regret.

The Cleveland Clinic’s colonoscopy prep guide says PEG preps can take one to three hours to kick in.

Dad spent those hours pacing the hallway like a bomb technician whose bomb was his own pants, while the dog watched from a safe distance and quietly updated its will.

That guide also bans red and purple Jell-O, since those colors can look like blood on camera. Dad took this as proof he had a wardrobe department.

The procedure usually takes less than an hour, per the NIDDK colonoscopy overview.

Nearly a gallon of fluids for under an hour of camera time is a worse ratio than most adult film shoots, and dad refuses to let that footage go to waste.

Doctors also pump the colon full of air for a better view. That air leaves later, usually in the car, usually with the child locks on.

Sedation is not a publicist

Anesthesia makes men bold.

Dad woke up in recovery, in a gown with no back, and asked the nurse for “the full-resolution files,” like a swimsuit model reviewing proofs.

He was not allowed to drive himself home. Yet on those same drugs, he felt fully qualified to art-direct a three-generation slideshow with a runtime longer than Titanic.

Anything promised while groggy, including “a tasteful montage,” is not legally binding.

Any judge would agree. So would his proctologist, who has seen enough of dad to last several lifetimes and did not ask for a sequel.

Should the colon get one slide?

Banning the colon entirely is the wrong call, and the numbers are ruder than dad.

Colorectal cancer is the second most common cause of cancer deaths in the U.S. with men and women combined.

Nobody laughs at that. Not even Uncle Ron, who laughs at funerals, weddings, and one time at a bris.

The American Cancer Society projects 158,850 new colorectal cancer cases in 2026, with 45 percent of new cases now hitting adults under 65. Screening among people 45 to 49 sits at 37 percent.

The NCI Cancer Trends Progress Report puts screening at 72.6 percent for adults 50 to 75.

So seat 12 relatives from that age range at Thanksgiving, and about three of them are hauling unexamined cargo around like an overhead-bin bag nobody has ever checked.

Removing polyps works. A long-term National Polyp Study analysis found 53 percent fewer colorectal cancer deaths than expected among patients who had adenomas taken out.

The one-slide compromise

Standard family-health advice says to raise screening privately, at the right time and place.

The Couric numbers disagree. One public spectacle pushed more butts into exam rooms than a million quiet kitchen-table chats, and it pulled in more younger patients, too.

Your cousins in their late 40s are the least-screened crowd in the building. They also sit closest to the TV, because it’s next to the open bar.

So cut a deal. One slide, no close-ups, captioned “Dad’s colon: spotless, sequel in 10 years.”

The caption checks out, since the USPSTF screening recommendation lists colonoscopy every 10 years for average-risk adults starting at 45, which gives dad a full decade to storyboard the sequel.

Trade the photo for a dad joke

Researchers who analyzed more than 32,000 posts from the r/dadjokes subreddit found healthcare topics land well.

They also found dads rate dad jokes funnier than everyone else does, which explains every Christmas since 1994.

Give him the mic for 30 seconds instead of the projector.

Approved material: “The doctor said my backside looked fantastic. Nicest thing anyone’s said about it since your mother in 1979.”

Mom will throw a dinner roll. Dad will glow like a man who got the last word and kept his pants on for once.

Consider the alternative. The colon is about 5 feet long, and at one slide per foot, his intestines get a longer tribute than Grandma, who survived polio, two husbands, and disco.

The Sunday before the reunion

Bring pie.

Men have signed away dignity for less.

Offer the package: one slide, one joke, and a private gallery for his gastroenterologist.

Then hide the HDMI cable anyway, because this is the same man who passed his kidney stone around at a baptism.