What's in the box??

Did you ever see the movie Se7en? Kevin Spacey and Brad Pitt involved in what is arguably one of the most graphic and mind-fucking serial killer/detective cat and mouse games to date. Good flick if you're into that sort of thing. At the end of the movie as Kevin Spacey continues to be, well, Kevin Spacey, Pitt goes off on this freak-out about a package. I don't want to give out any spoilers in case you've been living under a rock or are 17 and haven't seen this decade-old thriller, but suffice it to say that the breath-holding and anxious tooth grinding I do when I watch that flick is totally for naught every time I get to the scene at the end where Pitt asks Spacey “What’s in the box?” over and over. Seriously, it’s just such horrible acting. I actually get annoyed when I get to that part of the movie and I end up mad at myself for how bad it is.    

*Update: I just checked IMDB because it’s important to check facts before blabbing them on the internet, and Se7en came out in 1995. First, that’s practically twenty years ago. Second… TWENTY YEARS AGO?? Why are the things I love—namely music and movies in this case, and maybe some fashion here and there—from the mid-90s time capsule? When I was a kid I used to roll my eyes when my Pops would sing along with his classic rock station idols. My insatiable need to impart my expansive knowledge of the 90s scene on my teenagers is some sort of laughable penance I will apparently pay until Gwen Stefani is old enough to have a solid gig singing on the Strip in Vegas.

Rabbit Cape

Anyway, I found myself in my own messed up version of that scene a few days ago. As you may come to discover (and either love me, hate me, or find yourself totally disgusted by me for), I am dabbling in taxidermy these days. I took Aspen and Birch with me to select a pig from the farm to stock our freezer with recently. What started as a simple drive with the Indie Children’s Pandora station on in the background ended up a heated discussion on the subject of environmental ethics with my three-year-old.

So cuuuuuuute!

“Don’t tell your friends you eat meat,” Birch warned me from the back seat as we drove out to the country. “Why shouldn't I tell my friends I eat meat?” I wanted to know. "Why do you even eat the animals?" he asked, "Don't you know they just have to stay in their habitats? That is very important to the ecos [ecosystem]. And they are just so cuuuuuuute." Some people complain that their children will only eat McNuggets or hot dogs; Birch hasn’t knowingly put meat in his mouth for twenty-nine months now.

The farmer was only slightly taken aback when I asked if it would be possible for me to collect the head to try my hand at jarring a wet specimen, but assured me I’d receive a call once the butcher had done the first part of his job. Fast-forward to this afternoon to find me driving out to collect the head of a pig, and then working in my garage at dusk with the rolling door wide open to move the heavy bag into a Styrofoam cooler full of ice until I’m ready to work on it. If my neighbors didn’t already find me strange enough, they probably now find themselves lying in bed or peeking through their blinds trying to get a glimpse of my garage floor, thinking of the dripping, heavy trash bag they saw me carry from the van to the cooler and wondering, “What’s in the box?”