Study of Life

I'm a Biology major. Biology, in case you didn't know, is the "study of life." It's the study of living creatures, the environment, and complex workings of anatomy. What you might not know is that a lot of studying life comes from cutting up dead things.

A lot.

You have no idea. Frogs and fetal pigs are just the beginning. Calves, chickens, rodents, sharks, squid, fish, more rodents, worms, insects, cats, and vegetarians (they really didn't want us hurting the animals, so we offered them a trade).

But today's story revolves around rats. I am currently in a class where we were learning about tapeworms two months ago. And two months ago we infected rats. Now, I don't know if you've ever grabbed a squirming inbred rat by the scruff of the neck, shoved a tube down it's throat (past large yellow teeth), and injected it with tapeworm larva....but it's a hoot and a half. I named my rat Marvin.

I named the tapeworm Phil.

I had almost completely forgotten about Marvin and Phil until last week when it was announced that we would be dissecting the rats and examining the tapeworms. And I was excited. Now you might be thinking that I seem very cold about all of this. I am about to dissect an animal that I had named Marvin! The problem is, you are under the false pretenses that I liked Marvin. I didn't. The plague-holding bastard bit me. Just because you call something a name doesn't mean you like them. I called my fifth grade teacher a name: Mrs. Alvalado. And she was a bitch. On Teacher Appreciation Day my mother had bought a plant for me to give to her. I threw it into the trash. No Chrysanthemums for you Mrs. Alvalado. No ma'am.

So basically the rat that I infected with a parasite is on the same level in my mind as my fifth grade teacher.

Well, I'm excited about the lab. I think it's fascinating really. Little freaky though, once I was there. The thing is, they had euthanized the rats that day, just a few hours before. Marvin was still warm.

I kept expecting it to jump back to life and attack. Course that didn't stop me from grabbing it by the front paws and singing "Hello my baby/Hello my honey/Hello my ragtime gaaaal."

I need help.

Anyway, I felt much better about the whole thing once I had removed Marvin's duodenum. Now the way the process worked was that basically you massage down the small intestine, and basically force out any tapeworms into a petri dish.

Now, everyone around me had worms.....everywhere! Worms OUT THE ASS!

I, on the other hand, had the misfortune to discover that Phil the Tapeworm could not take ahold in Marvin's digestive tract because Marvin was too badly constipated. Basically I got a petri dish of shit.

Poor Phil.


Byah!

Rob