Red and Blue Latex is Thicker Than Water

A Valentine’s Day Story

By Jill MacGregor

I know a lot about your insides.

Going to high school in Austin, MN—the Home of Hormel—grants one particular access. Unless you too grew up in a meat packing town, I doubt you know what I’m talking about. Austin High School—home of the Packers: get it… because we were MEAT Packers…now go make cheerleader jokes…

Hormel. Spam. Got it?

When I was in high school I was fascinated by anatomy and physiology, thinking that one day I would be a doctor. Those dreams were dashed after what is known as the *unfortunate live frog incident*.

So what could this possibly have to do with Hormel, you may ask. One simple thing. PARTS. I’m talking about free parts—throw away parts, parts not even fit for the hot dogs. Hormel would generously provide our High School with buckets of free parts for dissection. (don’t think too long on that one…) Living in a meat packing town puts you on the fast track to getting free parts for anatomy classes. So, I’m taking some classes where we receive little formaldehyde soaked animals pumped full of red and blue latex and then other classes where we’d get giant buckets of pig eyeballs, straight from the pig. This was when I learned that our bodies are not as clean on the inside as they are on the outside.

One day, while clenching a live frog,(who knows where we got our frogs from…) my sharp probe pointed in the direction of its brain and spinal column, I suddenly understood this little frog was not going to be full of red and blue latex. The frog was also making a lot of eye contact. I sadly explained to my lab teacher that I just wasn’t able to kill the frog and handed him back. My lab teacher, who was always so sweet and gentle, took the frog and probe from me, told me he completely understood and gave that poor little frog the business inches from my face. “Pith and double pith”, he whispered as the probe scrambled Mr. Frog’s brain and then his spinal column.

He handed me back my limp frog, my mouth a frozen circle of “NO!”

The *unfortunate live frog incident*.

It was really interesting to dissect, though.

That was the moment I realized that I just might not be a doctor. It was very hard to see everything clearly with all of that blood obscuring my view. We are actually full of messy, messy blood. I suddenly longed for red and blue latex.

That didn’t stop me though from doing an independent anatomy project, which involved that same sweet lab instructor handing me a small, preserved shark wrapped in plastic, a set of scalpels and tools and reminding me to keep it refrigerated or it would go bad. My mom gave up her crisper drawer in the fridge and if I curved the shark just right I could get all 1 ½ feet of it in the drawer.

I confess, it’s not as easy to dissect alone. At the kitchen table. Every time I laid the shark on the table and prepared to dissect, I would expect it to twitch as my blade would touch its belly. Or I would replay my own version of Jaws: tiny Florida license plates spilling from its tiny shark stomach as I cut…

And its eyes. You know how they say (in Jaws) that a shark has dead eyes? Well, when it’s dead, it still has those same dead eyes making it look a little bit alive…for a shark. Alone at the kitchen table, these are the stories that would play in my head and although I outweighed my tiny shark by –well, geez, I think it only weighed 5 pounds—I always expected it to rear back on my hand and take a few fingers.

After a few months, my mom requested the crisper drawer be returned to a shark free zone and I hesitantly threw the man eater away. My lab instructor never asked about the shark. I imagine it was a gift with purchase he received by the Dead Things Full of Red and Blue Latex Company that supplied our high school with all of those fetal pigs.

Speaking of fetal pigs. The fetal pigs were the epitome of Comparative Anatomy II. You would spend the entire semester with your own tiny pig, meticulously identifying each internal organ and system. I was fascinated with my pig.

I was also fascinating with a boy whose name I can’t recall but in my mind he’s an amalgam of 3 boys. I had such a tremendous crush. Unrequited, of course. He was part of our group of friends so I always saw him and probably gushed a bit in his direction when I did.

I’m a proclamation kind of girl. I don’t mind taking a chance and making a statement. Valentine’s Day was just around the corner and I had an idea. I was going to tell him that I liked him. To his face. And I think I had come up with the perfect way to do it.

It was going to be very original.

Played and replayed in my head, suddenly Valentine’s Day was here and it was time to act. I saw him in the hall, in High School the location of all meaningful events.

“Hi Amalgam of Three Boys I Liked in High School (AOTBILIHS). I wanted to give you something very special for Valentine’s Day. I bet no one else will give you something like this.”

AOTBILIHS: looking wary yet strangely curious, “What is it?”

“It’s a surprise. Hold out your hand and close your eyes.”

AOTBILIHS: extremely apprehensive, “Close my eyes?”

“Just do it. I promise it’s not bad.”

AOTBILIHS complies, closing his eyes and reaching his open hand toward me, palm up.

I place my palm over his and close his fingers into a fist.

“I wanted to give you my heart. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

AOTBILIHS opens his eyes and his hand to discover he’s holding something he can’t identify. It looks like a piece of eraser. Eyes meet mine, questioning.

“It’s my heart.”

Not getting it.

“It s my fetal pig’s heart, actually.” But in a pinch it would have to do. We only got respiratory systems and eyeballs from Hormel.

And as he began to understand that I had removed a piece of dead pig and put its dead pig heart in his hand, his eyes grew wide and his hand, still gently cradling my heart, jerked up and hurled the pig’s heart somewhere behind him. Into the maddening throng of even more maddened teenagers, most hoping that cupid’s arrow would strike them that Valentine’s Day.

Only to be struck in the head by my fetal pig’s heart.