killing me softly

Strumming my pain with her trotters. Singeing my life... No more!

Sent off my last ever (*fingers & toes crossed* *touch wood* *say a little prayer*) piggy today. Back to being a regular pig exterminator (nope, haven't become vegetarian - yah I'm abominable). Oh how I've longed for this day!

So what will I take with me from this period of my life?

• "It looks so much like a human." - transplant surgeon / spectator of our crime and reaper of its fruits

And she does. From the texture of her skin, the eyelashed eyes, the fingernails capable of doing serious damage to my forearms, to the body heat that peaks during the wrestle but shortly disappears. I hope I'll be as lucky as Clarice, and not endure the screaming for eternity.

• a partner in crime is a friend in time

I may never know him better than I do right this moment, which is next to nothing, but I'll remember his \\ blood-stained pants out of which he has nothing to change into for the rest of the day \\ contempt for researchers who don't want to get their hands dirty \\ (possibly work-induced) dislocation-prone shoulder and (definitely work-induced) deteriorating hearing \\ lamenting our way-of-starting-the-day \\ tremendous affection for his fiance \\ mainstream taste in, yet endearing commentary on, TV programmes...

• deluxe model metallic peristaltic pump + concentrated nitric acid = trouble + professional suicide

I've really let my Yr 11 chemistry teacher down. For some reason (which shall elude me until the end of time) one sunny afternoon it occurred to me to 'clean' the rusty ol' pump by putting it in our tub of industrial-strength HNO3. Overnight. Did somebody say perish-taltic. The carnage attracted several bewildered onlookers, some gently concealed wrath of my colleagues, as well as the Occupational Health & Safety folk.

• Ideal Job pre-requisite #7: must make me feel that I'm earning my keep

In this case I stopped feeling that since, mid-July? And shocking as it sounds, especially to myself, no amount of fortnightly deposits into my bank account made up for that escalating sense of my wanton destructiveness. Not that I don't absolutely appreciate the deposits. Once or twice I caught myself wishing I had more time (rank helps too) to explain to The Team why I think \\ the experimental design is a total dud / should be scrapped forthwith \\ we could do more to promote the sharing / waste-minimisation of precious animal tissue \\ I want a less non-interventionist Supervisor 'kthx.

But, by-gones! Yay x No. times I hauled a pig carcass into a freezer full of pig carcasses.