Confession

Agenda: To kill a live frog and skin its belly to investigate sodium transport across the epithelia.

LS Lab, ca. 1400h, lab officer mass culls 15 live frogs with a large needle. She stabs it into the base of the frog's skull and mushes it about, severing the spinal cord. (Meme: eee!!!!!!!!) She distributes one to each bench.

ca. 1415h:

Victor: (to me) eh you cut lah, I know you want to cut it.
Me: Poor froggy... (proceeds cautiously with steel scissors)
Meme: (wails, scurries to end of bench, armed with camera)
Victor: I wonder if we can bring it back with us... I'm sure I could cook it.
Me: ...

Froggy twitches now and then in reflex.

ca. 1430h, frog skin barely half cut:

Me: (approaching the "waist") Eek!!! Omg it wriggled!!! Omg... (wails)
Victor: Where??
Meme: (wails)
Me: (pokes it there again, frog legs flail desperately) THERE!!!!!! AGH IT'S STILL ALIVE!!!!
Victor: No laaaaaa... (prods froggy, frog twitches and wriggles a bit) Oh man so fun.
Meme: Victor, KARMA!!!

ca. 1435h, passed the scissors to Victor, the bunny is visibly traumatised.

Victor: Shucks it's bleeding a lot. How come other people's frogs aren't bleeding? (to the opposite bench) Is your frog twitching and bleeding? (They answer "no")
Lab officer comes by: What's wrong? It's dead la don't need to squeal.
Meme: NOOOO IT'S STILL ALIVE!!! (Victor prods it and it wriggles again)
Lab officer: Ooooh haha, yeah maybe it's not dead ah.
Me: I think it's still alive.

ca. 1445h, operation remove belly skin almost complete, I arrange the apparatus, Victor chills.

Meme: EEEK!! Victor are you trying to cut its toe off???
Victor: (sheepish) Can I just cut one toe off?
Meme: Noo!! The frog is twitching, it's still alive.... (wails)
Victor: I go to Demin's bench maybe they will let me cut their frog's toe off.
Me: ...

ca. 1500h, waiting for setup to stabilise, Victor is bored.

Victor: Can I cut off one toe? Just one!
Me: Victor, the fella is obviously very much alive. I tell you, it will summon up every ounce of remaining strength and pounce on you in his last leap for justice to be done..... I tell you.....
Meme: I think this frog is a Super Froggy.
Gillian: (from across the bench) Yeah, it's a survivor frog.

ca. 1515h, TA comes by.

Victor: Ivy!! We think our frog is still alive.
Ivy: Yeah la they are all still alive what, just brain dead.
Me: Noooo look at this, it WRIGGLES!
Meme: (wails) Poor froggy...
Ivy: (prods frog) Oh yeah ah! Wow ok ok I'll kill it again for you. (fetches needle and lifts up frog by the belly, its legs flail weakly, stabs it and the fella lets out a large stream of pee.)

Meme: Omg.... it was alive all this while.... Omg......
Me:.......We had to kill it TWICE....
Meme: ...and it had to wait a whole hour to die the second time....
Victor: I want to take it back with me to cook.
Lab officer: (comes by to clean up) Eh? You all not going to dissect it?
Us: Noo......
Lab officer: (picks up frog by the legs, looks at it) Hmm... this one can eat wan. (trots off with frog)