The Hose

She was not hot by any stretch of the imagination, but when I saw her cut this guy open like a seasoned professional, I must say, I was intrigued. If you're okay with something of a graphic nature, then there is more...

Her name was Ellie and I would imagine her "job title" was senior forensic technician. Ellie was a wan looking 35 year-old white girl with nose and bilateral quadruple ear piercings. Peeking out of the sleeves of her scrubs was a tattoo of what looked like a phoenix on one arm and some Chinese characters on the other.

Ellie was unbelievably nice for her somewhat harsh looking exterior. She was aware that this was my first time assisting with an autopsy, so she showed me around the suite pointing out all of the equipment, and even kindly helped me put on layers of protective plastic clothing (which felt totally awkward given that no one has helped me with my pants since I crapped myself in kindergarten). Actually, her friendliness was almost overwhelming, which kind of made this all the stranger, because many times I wondered how many friends she really had.

After gathering my notes and equipment together in the corner, I turned around and saw her gowned-up and wearing this welder-style face shield. With both hands she's holding a rotating saw, looking like some freaky zombie, and then she goes to work. She starts at the collarbone, then down under one arm, over the top of the lower chest, then up under the other arm to the opposite collarbone.

She then grasps the chest plate from the bottom and flips the entire chest-piece over the head.

"We call this a clamshell," she says. "Sometimes we use the Y, but I thought a clamshell might work better for this."

My thoughts as I peered upon this strange scene and even stranger person:

How on God's great Earth do you do this? I mean, that was a person like 45 minutes ago, and you just flipped his friggin chest up over his head like you were taking off his T-shirt. What sort of messed-up childhood trauma sends you to do this? Or actually, are you totally and completely normal, and I am just projecting my own insecurites?

What did the Want Ad look like for this job? I can't possibly imagine. Is there a High Flying Marketing Executive that can come up with a way to successfully advertise for this job without making me want to puke?

Does she eat clams? After this, I certainly won't.