No, friends, colonoscopy time is not like peanut butter and jelly time, or Miller time, or even Hammer time. In the words of a very wise e-card that I once got, "It's like going to the dentist...it's nothing like going to the dentist." How do you know when it's your colonoscopy time? Simple:

When you get an e-card like this one. I received one today from a "concerned friend." Apparently my colonoscopy time has come. Could be life saving; will definitely be...memorable. I have this misguided fantasy that the colonoscopy tech will bring me flowers and buy me dinner, but like all the other techs I've been with, I know this one will only be interested in one thing: my anus.

Anus aside, this e-card is part of a campaign for Regence, a large health insurance provider in the Northwest. The site is called MyRegenceECard.com and allows auidence members to send custom tailored e-cards to friends and family on a series of health issues, some of which may be hard to talk about...like colonoscopy. This campaign allows Regence to non-intrusively collect names of possible new customers as well as be a substantive part of the conversation about health maintenance.

With cost of acute and emergency care extremely high for insurance providers, Regence is very smart to encourage its audience to get necessary but unpleasant checkups on a regular basis. Even if it means putting tubes where no tubes belong.