The Slimy and the Scaley

I discovered this summer that everyone has a range of squeemishness where they'll do some things that could be considered gross or disgusting and yet won't dare try something that could seem much less so to someone else. I guess it depends on your perspective.

I could never dissect something. I was lucky enough with my biology teachers that even after two years of advanced biology, I've never taken apart something more advanced than an owl pellet. But I have friends in A & P who are talking about fetal pigs and the arms of cadavers. I've never turned green so quickly. What I didn't realize was when I started talking about frog skin punches, tadpole tails, and radio telemetry in fish, they felt the same way I'd felt before.

My job during the summer not only involves a lot of hiking but trapping tadpoles, running after frogs, getting wet, trying not to drop fish, and looking at the sphincters of newts (You can tell the gender based upon how enlarged the anus is. The term "puckered booty" came around and stuck last year.) That's not to mention hauling wet minnow traps in and out of duckweed encrusted ponds, hiking with 70 lb packs, and not eating lunch because you don't know what's still on your hands after you washed them...twice... Sounds like Heaven, doesn't it?