Conversations in the Car 1: on the topic of dissection.

My eldest daughter, Kat, described her day at school: “We dissected brains today. It was kinda interesting but gross. I dared Susie to squeeze them. I didn’t think she would, but she did. All this like brain juice came out of them. It was sick. I screamed actually”.

I replied with my own anecdote: “Hmm. Yes it is interesting, but I don’t particularly enjoy it either. Once I dissected rats with a year eight class and one girl found out that her rat was pregnant. She’d done a great job of the dissection and you could see all these little bumps in the two uteruses of the rat. She carefully opened it up to reveal the little babies, tiny and curled up but recognisably almost perfect little mice. She brought one of them up to me holding it in her hand. She was excited. Can I take it home to show my brother? Please? I paused, but in the end I could not refuse her enthusiasm and curiosity. Yes, I said. So she wrapped it in a tissue and put it in her pocket. I made her promise she would throw it out after her brother had seen it.

For the next couple of days I dreaded a phone call from the girl’s parents. It never came. I was relieved. However, I felt that I’d made a poor decision and have almost been expecting it to catch up with me one day”.