Thursday, April 10, 2008

Is that Idaho? Or a kidney?

Every day after class, I walk to lunch through a street where people are butchering sheep on the side of the road, with large numbers of carcasses just hanging up next to them. And today, I wasn't really paying attention, and I came *so* close to stepping on a random organ that had made its way to the street. It's the type of thing where you see it at the last moment, and immediately exert all your strength to lunge forward and step past it.

I think maybe it was a sheep's kidney.

I feel like I should be able to be a little more definitive about that. I think if I saw where it was positioned in the sheep I could've figured it out--but when it's lying in the street, it's a little more difficult. It's like how you can name a state if all the lines are drawn, but it might be difficult to draw Idaho, for instance, in the exact right location on a blank map (Idaho in this way--and maybe others?--is much like that nameless internal organ thrown in the street).

2 comments:

Justin Scott said...

Interestingly enough, sheep's kidneys are located just behind their ears.

Which explains the old saying, "Never trust a sheep. They have kidneys for brains."

drew said...

Okay, I tried to fact-check this one, but all I could find was a place where you can order sheep kidneys ten at a time for about $2 each.

*If* what you say is true, I was drastically overconfident about my ability to identify your average, run-of-the-mill, properly-situated sheep kidney.