Yup. Most of you thought I knew what a meme was, didn’t you? But I really did have to look it up. I can still tell you the meanings of the obscure SAT words I studied out of the big Barron’s book in the summer of 1975, but yes, I have to look up four-letter words.

Well, actually, not all of them. Some I’ve become familiar with through repeated use. Hell, yeah.

But back to the raccoon, ’cause it’s a cool story. (Really. It doesn’t get disgusting till much later in this post.) When I was in the eighth grade (1971-1972), I had an amazing science teacher named Miss Dorothy Green. Miss Green came from Colorada (that’s how she pronounced it), and she was a hunter. In the rural backwater in which I now live, she would not stand out, but back in my conservative, suburban Massachusetts grammar school, in which the girls were still required to wear skirts, I can’t believe she even got a job.

She was wonderful. One day, she brought in the pelt of a coyote that she had hunted and skinned. I thought it was cool. It still had the face on it, with teeth even, and I remember it clearly, because she let us get up close and personal with the pelt, and I got to touch the teeth.

After showing us the pelt, she said that anyone who wanted to could bring in an animal to skin. She wasn’t expecting that we’d hunt it up. She was talking roadkill. Most of the girls went “Ewwwww!” (as perhaps some of you are now), but in those days, I was still determined to prove that I was not a squeamish girl, so I took her up on the challenge. I think she’d been thinking small mammals, but I was into something much grander.

Now, there is no f***ing way that my parents were going to pick up roadkill for me to skin, but my best friend Danny Wyner had New Age parents before there were New Age parents, and one day, the perfect piece of roadkill turned up. Danny and his parents were out for a drive when they spotted a dead raccoon by the side of the road and, bless their hearts, his parents helped him bring the dead raccoon into their suburban car, suburban home, and suburban refrigerator until the next morning, when Danny lugged it into school.

(If you’re eating right now, or have anything in your stomach, you might want to skip the next two paragraphs.)

It was a big f***ing raccoon, let me tell you, and Miss Green got right to work showing us what to do. For an entire week of science classes and free periods, we used razor blades to cut the sinews that held the skin to the rest of the body. When we were done, Miss Green told us that we could attach the head to a tree in a wire mesh. Why, you ask? So that insects could eat out its brain, that’s why. Then we’d have a handy-dandy raccoon skull.

The rest of the story involves a fair amount of squeamishness on everyone’s part. You see, we did separate the raccoon’s head and attach it to a tree in the woods behind our school. Problem was, it fell down. Where, I don’t know, but for the rest of the year, I was terrified to walk into the woods because all I could think about was the possibility of stepping on a raccoon skull and hearing it go crunch.

As for the pelt? Well, my grandfather was a furrier, and I just knew that he’d be the perfect person to tan it for us. Unfortunately, he did not think so. When I called him up to ask him, here’s what he said:

“What? Where’s the pelt now? In Danny’s refrigerator??? Are you crazy??? You’ve got the skin of a dead animal in Danny’s refrigerator??? Throw that thing away before you get a disease. You’re going to get a disease. I can’t believe your mother let you do this.”

So that’s the story and, as it turned out, it became the final chapter in my life as a tomboy. Nowadays, I can hardly even look at a dead mouse. When we lived on the farm and I had to trap mice, I’d use one of those electronic traps, take it outside, open it up, avert my eyes, hold it at arm’s length, and shake it out in the woods.

Ewwwww.

Thank you all for playing, and congratulations to bbsmum for guessing correctly!

© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

Meme: A relatively newly coined term, identifies ideas or beliefs that are transmitted from one person or group of people to another. The name comes from an analogy: as genes transmit biological information, memes can be said to transmit idea and belief information. (From the Wikipedia entry)

Jillsmo over at Yeah. Good Times has created an award, The Memetastic Award, which has now made the rounds to yours truly. Laura over at Life in the House That Asperger Built has selfishly inflicted graciously bestowed it upon me.

Here’s what Jillsmo has to say about the profound and mysterious origins of the award, along with the rules visited upon its victims its illustrious recipients must follow:

*Jillsmo says*

I’ve created an award!! You know those blogger awards that go around the blogosphere, I’ve gotten a few before. It’s nice, to get these things, it means that somebody likes you and wants to spread your word. (That actually sounded kind of gross, “spread your word.” Please don’t spread my word, I like my word the way it should be, the way nature intended, in its original unspread state. But you know what I mean). So, I figured there aren’t enough of these things around, at least, I haven’t been given one for a few months, surely the blogosphere needs another one! (Is “blogosphere” the right word to be using here? It doesn’t look right to me.)

So, I present to you all: The Memetastic Award! Named as such because these things are memes and its purpose is solely to celebrate the memeness of the award giving process. Let’s rejoice in our memeocity by passing this award on to other people! It will be memelicious! Okay, mostly I just want to see what happens, and how far this thing goes. Wouldn’t it just be so cool if an actual meme was created from this? Not very likely, but a girl can dream, right? At this point I’m just hoping it makes it past my own blog.

Here are the rules:

1. You must proudly display the absolutely disgusting graphic that I have created for these purposes (put it in your post, you don’t have to put it in your sidebar, I think that would seriously be asking too much). It’s so bad that not only did I use COMIC SANS, but there’s even a little fucking jumping, celebrating kitten down there at the bottom. It’s horrifying! But its presence in your award celebration is crucial to the memetastic process we’re creating here. If you need a higher resolution version… I totally have one!!

2. You must list 5 things about yourself, and 4 of them must be bold-faced lies. Just make some shit up, we’ll never know; one of them has to be true, though. Of course, nobody will ever know the difference, so we’re just on the honor system here. I trust you. Except for the 4 that you lied about, you lying bastards! But don’t go crazy trying to think of stuff, you’ll see by the example I’ve set below that we’re not really interested in quality here.

3. You must pass this award on to 5 bloggers that you either like or don’t like or don’t really have much of an opinion about. I don’t care who you pick, and nobody needs to know why. I mean, you can give a reason if you want, but I don’t really care.

4. If you fail to follow any of the above rules, I will fucking hunt your ass down and harass you incessantly until you either block me on Twitter or ban my IP address from visiting your blog. I don’t know if you can actually do that last thing, but I will become so annoying to you that you will actually go out and hire an IT professional to train you on how to ban IP addresses just so that I’ll leave you alone. I’m serious. I’m going to do these things. Starting with the 5 of you I’m about to pass this award on to.

5. This one isn’t actually a rule, but once you do the above, please come back here and link up to the Memetastic Hop so that I can keep track of where this thing goes.

*Jillsmo stops talking now*

Okay. So. Ready? Here goes:

1. I feel so honored to receive this award, I cannot tell you. Truly. You shouldn’t know. I’m plotzing. I’m practically delirious. I would pass out, but I’ve got three more lies four more things to list about myself.

2. I did so totally know what a meme was when I first saw this award on Jillsmo’s blog, and I absolutely did not need to look it up on Wikipedia for myself. I just posted the Wikipedia entry out of pity for you poor shleps who didn’t know either.

3. When I was in the eighth grade, I skinned a raccoon. (Hey, it was roadkill! It was just lying there.)

4. When I go on vacation, I love jumping from the hot tub to the swimming pool, over and over, just for the cold rush.

5. I’m so happy that it’s only January, and that the snow is still on the friggin’ ground, aren’t you?

And now, while you’re trying to figure out where the truth lies (Get it? Truth? Lies? Hahaha!)…

The moment we’ve all been waiting for.

Envelope, please.

Pause.

Pause.

Suspenseful pause.

The Memetastic Award goes to:

1. Aspergirl Maybe at Aspergirl Maybe

2. Bruce at Born 2b me

3. Clay at Comet’s Corner

4. Diane at Don’t Panic

5. Lili Marlene at Incorrect Pleasures

Congratulations, suckers lucky recipients!

© 2011 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg

…and all of you for supporting me in my quest to obtain this wonderful blog award (bestowed upon me by Big Daddy Autism). I couldn’t have done it without you. In accepting this award, I agreed to disclose seven things about myself and pass the award onto seven bloggers I whose work I enjoy. So here are seven things about myself you might not already know:

1) I am left-handed (and left-leaning on most things, like the kitchen counter).

2) I am a hat person. I look good in hats, I’m told. I also love knitting hats of all kinds. Just ask all the people wearing my hats.

3) I have raised and slaughtered chickens (and plucked and cleaned them out, too). Yes, it was difficult at first, but since we did kosher slaughter, it was also a very spiritual experience. (For us. I’m not sure how the chickens felt about it.)

4) I wear shoes in a child’s size 3 because no one seems to make shoes in a women’s size 5 anymore.

5) I have a new cat named Dakota. She meows more than most dogs bark and for no apparent reason.

6) I will watch any movie with George Clooney in it because they’re all so profound.

7) I have watched more Law and Order episodes than is legal in some states.

And here are seven blogs I love reading and that you should definitely check out!

Aspie from Maine
Aspitude!
Incorrect Pleasures
Kataiska Sandwich
Life with Aspergers
SpunkyKitty: My Wonderful World
Static Vox

© 2010 by Rachel Cohen-Rottenberg