How do like them apples?
I was just perusing the blog of my good friend Ritchey (http://www.urbanhonking.com/regarding) when I came across an entry that was entirely dedicated to my recent "M" word story. I was suprised to see that she described my dear Adventures in Medical School, the online journal into which I have poured all my hopes and dreams, as "a major league gross-out blog." While I take no offense at this description - indeed, I heartily agree with it - the urge to post even more gross things is becoming unquenchable. Therefore, I impart to you the following tale...
Today while waiting for the microwave to warm up my lunch of chili dogs and olives (actually it was just a veggie stirfry with peanut sauce) I got to talking with one of the autopsy assistants. This guy has worked at the Medical Examiners office for like 20 years and he is very nice. We were discussing my vegetarianism and I made a jokey comment about not eating meat because I have seen too many autopsies. This made my colleague think of an observation that he has made over the years.
He has come to notice that after participating in an autopsy on a particularly rancid body, one that has been sitting out for a while and has progressed quite far along the path of putrefaction, he gets ravenously hungry. This is something that he has noticed time and time again, and that some of the ME's experience as well. Apparently there is something about rotting flesh that triggers some of those ancient scavenging instincts.
Then he proceded to tell me about one time where they were doing an autopsy on a burn victim. But this person hadn't been charred like many of the burned bodies that they see (the so called "crispy critters"). Instead it had been kind of cooked. And he said it smelled exactly like filet mignon, or a really nice steak, and that he started salivating profusely. Against all his reason and logic, and with the very clear knowledge that he was standing in front of a dead person, his body had an intense involuntary reaction of hunger, as if he was preparing for a meal. His body wanted him to eat that person!
Ok, so clearly this was not as gross as the whole maggot business. And I think i will not share gross stories about child abuse because it makes me very very mad. Oh my god. So horribly angry. And sad. But i bet this story has got you thinking about eating a dead person - and that's got to count for something.
thanks to Fiona's blog, I think about eating dead people ALL THE TIME!
gimmie a fork im starving
I definitely think this is more gross than maggots. Maggots eating people = normal, the way of all things, if hard to witness. People (wanting to) eat people = HORRIFIC IN ALL POSSIBLE WAYS. You are learning the weirdest things.
Just wait til I tell you the story about dead people eating maggots! Now THAT's gross.
that story was radical! radical! radical!
i want more! more! more!
You are honest in your responses, this is awesome to read.Think I'll lay off meat for a while.... If you ever see that old John Carpenter film "The Thing"; well, I haven't been able to order ribs in a Chinese restaurant ever since. That was more of a visual repugnance, but the sense of smell kind of by-passes the intellect in a way that sight doesn't, I guess.
am i crazy if i think maggots are grosser then cannibalism? because i do! i do!
this is related to a traumatic "maggots in wet cat food" childhood trauma, so maybe i am alone in my belief.
now that i think about it, wet cat food might be grosser than maggots AND cannibalism.
I think maggots ARE grosser than cannibalism. Eating a human doesn't seem that awful to me - in a way, its just meat. Not that I'm eager to take a bite out of anyone, but if I was in an Alive-type situation, I wouldn't have a huge moral dilemma when it came to eating my dead friends in order to survive. WWJD? He'd totally eat the people.
But why are maggots so gross? Because they are - they are disgusting. But they are just baby flies. Cute little baby flies who grow fat feasting on rotting human flesh. But seriously, i think we might have some sort of innate aversion to them. Maggots represent decay and rot and all things that a human should stay away from if it doesn't want to die of overwhelming bacterial sepsis. Its Mother Nature's department of sanitation saying "This restaurant is condemned for health code violations."
Why do all my blog entries regarding dead people end up being about food?
I read something about this woman who ate her husband and when th judge asked her why she did that , she answered: " But it's so good!" And also, apparently, our flesh is like pork.
I use maggots to eat the infection out of my belly button
I use maggots to eat the infection out of my belly button
bellybutton