Perish the Wee Beastie

Catherine J. Gardner's post today, on her blog The Poisoned Apple, had to do with finding old diaries and reminiscing about the entries. Particularly the ones regarding writing endevours. I commented that I had not kept one and it was just as well as there was pretty much nothing to report between the ages of 12 and 20. I suggested that for an interesting read we could crack open one of my old university chemistry lab books...much more entertaining to be sure. The whole science thing got my thought process on a tangent.

I flashed back to public school where we had to take a chicken and boil it in a pot until all of the meat and skin could be taken off (this nasty task, of course, fell upon my mum). We then had to take apart the bones, dry them, and rebuild the bird in some sort of a striking pose. On another occasion, high school I think, we had to discect a cow's eye. I recall the teacher bringing the plastic pail of eyes into the class, the orbs all packed in crushed ice and staring up at us with an accusatory stare. The final nasty flashback is of biology class in university when we had to disect a frog. I had been out all night drinking with friends and got about 1 hour of sleep prior to the 3 hour lab session. I desided then and there the mutilation of wee beasts was not for me. Myself and another burly young man defered the scalpel weilding to the woman of our threesome...which leads to the conslusion that this sort of business is best handled by the fairer sex...or was it: don't mess aroung with a woman holding a blade. You get the picture!