Membership has its privileges

Yesterday I got out of a ticket for speeding through Cow Town*, NH, with the “I have to pee!” excuse. Do give that a whirl! If you aren’t suffering from quick-onset obesity like I am, just slouch and tenderly pat your abdomen. Fucking breeders.

After escaping the law, I was glued to a story on NPR about organ brokers and illegal tissue harvesting. Finally, the profession for me! I’ve always wanted to be a surgeon, but this would allow me to skirt the pesky medical degree. I could do it from a home office. I’ve toyed with the idea of hanging out my illegal cosmetic surgery shingle, but who likes seeing how sausage is made?

Although I’m glad I haven’t had any recent illegal and unscreened tissue implants. I do feel bad for poor Alistair Cooke‘s family though. I used to love me some Masterpiece Theatre when I was a kid. And, oh hell, the families of other less-famous people too. And the unsuspecting people who received potentially contaminated tissue.

Annie Cheney was on the program discussing her book Body Brokers: Inside America’s Underground Trade in Human Remains (excerpt). Among other interesting facts, the hotel ballroom where you are having your wedding reception may have recently hosted a hands-on seminar for doctors, meaning a bunch of torsos or ankles might have been laid out around the room for surgical training or product demos.

Over dinner, I told Mr. H that he is 100% allowed to donate any of my organs, and that he may sell the rest or donate it to science as he pleases. Or have me stuffed and mounted over the fireplace or posed in lingerie. I honestly don’t care. I’ll be dead. I think part of the problem is that people aren’t allowed to just sell their own loved ones. Eliminate the middle man of the shady funeral home, and let people seize commerce as they see fit. No touchy the folks who don’t want to be recycled. Then regulate the shit out of the whole deal to avoid implanting diseased tissue. Someone’s already making money on this, so why not just make it legal and cap the profit margin? Wow, that was a hard-hitting FOX-news-y opinion.

Then Mr. H told me he had lunch with a friend who’s graduating from medical school in a few months. The friend was agonizing over going to his next class, saying it would be boring because all they’d be doing is dissecting a brain. Mr. H said “Are you kidding? My wife would love to dissect a brain!” He knows me well. I need to have our friend over for a home-cooked dinner so I can butter him up for an invite to brain lab. What food is most reminiscent of brains?

*The mayor is actually a goat. Whoa, recycled joke!

3 responses to “Membership has its privileges”

  1. Seriously, check out Mary Roach’s book “Stiff.” (Featured in a crucial episode of Six Feet Under!).

    Also, the food which most resembles brains could be brain cupcakes. Or it could be, you know, Calves’ brains sauteed in butter.

    (Every other week, during my year abroad, Tia would make a tortilla de sesos– the calf-brain omelet. Mmmm.)

  2. Ya know, I almost had the fat kids at my volunteer job make those brain cupcakes. We ended up making eyeball cupcakes instead because they couldn’t handle a piping bag.

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