accidental feminist

like I’m supposed to know… September 27, 2005

The school I work at has recently had the great fortune of having a wealthy and altruistic donor provide us with educationally valuable ancient artifacts, fossils, and other fun stuff. Today, after the staff meeting, we were invited to peruse the collection. It was pretty thrilling. I’m not usually allowed to handle cross-sections of millions of year old meteorites or fossilized velociraptor eggs.

So I’m over in the fossil section, and among the objects there’s a lovely chunk of fossilized dinosaur poop. Yes, prehistoric feces. The donor approaches the table and smiles. “When students ask if this one is real, I tell them to smell it.” I’m intruigued. Can a fossil retain an odor? Can it tranfer this odor to other objects? Should I smell it? I give an aprehensive look, but I’m ready to take one for science, so I start to bring the piece of doo doo to my nose.

That’s when everyone around me laughs. “Of course it doesn’t smell,” the donor tells me, “it’s a fossil!”

I’m less embarassed than I am disappointed. It doesn’t? Look, what do I know…I’m just a caveman…