Disgusting Dinner Discussions

Warning: If you are squeamish you might want to pass this entry up. Or if you would still like to think of me as a normal sane person. :-) 

I grew up in a family of doctors so it takes an awful lot to turn my stomach. Dad would come home from work and tell us about all the organs he cut up that day. We'd listen attentively to the sometimes gruesome details while chewing on dinner. I remember the night he brought home pictures of the baby born without a skull. We looked at them right after dessert. Kind of icky but interesting in a bizarre way. My brother John would tell us all about his cadaver that he was working on in med school and my mother would tell us interesting serial killer stories. Needless to say I have a fairly strong stomach. 

My problem though is that I often forget how strong a stomach I have when eating with others. Jeff has gotten used to me. But others make strange faces at some of my dinner conversations. If you eat with me often enough eventually you will be grossed out by something I say. So I try really hard to remind myself not to talk about anything too terrible. Most of the time that helps. 

I went out for dinner tonight with a friend from my previous place of work. We try to get together once a month to have dinner, talk books, and share stories. She and I have some of the most interesting discussions about religion and family and children (she's childfree too). And then she brought up decomposing bodies. And I was shocked. She and I have talked a little about death before but this was a hard core what happens after you die talk. As we worked on a plate of Mexican food and beers, we discussed cremation versus burial, donating bodies to science, and the length of time needed to completely decompose a body. I was in my element. 

We tried really hard to talk quietly but I feel bad for any of the tables sitting near us that heard our conversation. Very few people can handle discussions about the Body Farm and embalming without at least getting a little green. And all I could think was here was a friend where I didn't have to pull any punches. I didn't have to censor myself. It was almost freeing. We sat at the restaurant and talked for 2 and a half hours (not all of it was decomposing bodies). The waiters probably hated us by the end. But the conversation was just too stimulating to leave. And it reminded me of growing up...well growing up and Chas Addams.