Also I can't stop washing my hands

[brigdh]

I think I have mentioned that, for one of my classes, it is necessary to produce a skeleton. The method for this is to acquire the body of a small animal, in my case a duck, and boil it until you're left with bones.

This is the most traumatizing thing I have ever done in my life. (Hyperbole yay.) I think I will finally be done with it tonight, but there have been weeks of constant boiling, on and off. There is the smell of grease that permeates everything. I was going to write out some of the more specific details, but it is so disgusting that there really is no purpose to forcing you to share the knowledge. Every second I spend doing this I want to weep with frustration, or perhaps vomit. I loathe it.

As soon as this is over, I will never, ever have to do anything like this again, which is a good thing because otherwise I would drop out of school and beg on the streets before willingly taking on such a project.

Comments

[rm.livejournal.com]

woah.

Put out bowls of white vinegar. It's what we washed our walls with when our house smelled like rancid bacon because the peopel downstairs started a greese fire.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I diiiiiiid. And I boiled clean water with herbs to steam everything with nice smells, and I burned scented candles, and I left all the windows wide open, and the duck still overwhelms everything.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Hrrrrrrr.
Baking soda?
Air neutralizer?
random blocks of charcoal?

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. I'll have to buy one tomorrow and try it.

[rm.livejournal.com]

a mixture of febreze and vinegar in a spray bottle?

man, I'm glad I'm not you. Also, thank god you chose a duck. Just imagine how much worse it could have been.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Yeah. Also, there's always killing myself so I never have to remember any of this ever again. I'm convinced I can smell duck all over myself and I'm probably just being neurotic, but it's so disturbing.

Some people did fish! I feel like a fish would have been easy; I wish I'd thought of that.

[rm.livejournal.com]

I think so -- the meat is flakier.

Do you knwo from Japanese black soap? That will get the duck smell off. It has charcoal o something in it.

I have cool black soap from villanness that smells like leather and cigarette smoke and vanilla -- it's called antihero. That's what's you're needing. But seriously, less cool black soap will do it.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Less fatty, too.

Oh, yeah. I think I've seen the non-Japanese, trucker's version of that soap.

[rm.livejournal.com]

The tiny tiny bones would have been harder to assemble if that's consolation.

One day this will be funny.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Eh, these fucking bird bones are practically disintegrating anyway, so there's probably no real 'good choice' here.

So Rachel proves, in the comment below. But ugh. I'll need years before I can manage to be funny in any way other than providing expressions of absolute horror.

[rm.livejournal.com]

Funny for you, perhaps.

Seriously though, I have all these questions I'm reaaaly not sure I want to knwo the aanswer to.

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Heh, that's the problem with gross things, isn't it? They make you curious, even though you know you'd be happier ignoring the whole thing.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

Ha-ha-ha!

I had to do that once. It was an experience I will never forget. It was... Night of the Frankenchicken (http://rachelmanija.livejournal.com/211920.html)!

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

Ha, I remember reading that! Excellent story. At least I don't have to reassemble mine, but on the other hand, you don't mention having to deal with your chicken's brains, though perhaps that's the sort of detail better forgotten than retold.

[rachelmanija.livejournal.com]

I bought mine at a supermarket, so it was already footless and decapitated. Thank God.

OMG

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

CAN I HAVE THEM WHEN YOU'RE DONE?

Re: OMG

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

No, sorry. It's for a class, and the professor wants to keep them.

Re: OMG

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

Phooey. Oh well, guess I'll either have to fork out the money for the pigeon on Skulls Unlimited (http://www.skullsunilmited.com), or I'll have to boil my own duck.

Re: OMG

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

The skeleton on that site is in much better condition than mine, since some of the bones started disintegrating. I would recommend against trying it, because it's way more disgusting than one would think, unless you deeply, deeply want a bird skeleton, I guess. Or do it in some other way, like leaving the body in a compost heap for a few months.

Re: OMG

[shes-unreal.livejournal.com]

I see they actually have a duck skeleton for sale, but the pigeon is already mounted and everything which I'd want. I'd want to have bones and skulls and mounted butterflies on display in my future residence, you know, just to gross people out.

Do you ever watch Dirty Jobs with Mike Rowe on the Discovery Channel? He was at Skulls Unlimited in one of the episodes and it seemed to be a pretty horrifying experience. If you think boiling a duck is nasty, imagine boiling several bison in one huge vat.

Re: OMG

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I wouldn't mind having cleaned skeletons around; that could be pretty cool. It's the process of producing the skeletons that horrifies me.

Man, I haven't seen that (though I know the show), but my professor's told stories about how she had to boil a horse, and just listening to that was enough for me. She's also doing two bears right now, but those are in the 'bury it in a compost heap and wait a year' method, which seems to be a bit less completely gross.

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

You know, people talk about how horribly clean and sanitized and removed from reality we are in this modern era. And then I read stories like this and I think "I'll take my detachment, thank you. With a nice side of ham."

[wordsofastory.livejournal.com]

I miss my detachment! I can't wait for time to pass and it to reestablish itself.

I might be a bit of a special case, since I don't cook meat and thus find the whole thing strange and off-putting, but everyone seems to be reacting in the same way. I love that I have heard several stories in which someone's mom/partner/whatever told them to save the meat so they could cook something with it, and after the process instead went, "yeeeeeah, I'm just going to throw this away".

[mistressrenet.livejournal.com]

I cook meat and find it sort of off-putting but dealing with the fat and viscera and...ugh. no.