MrsDoyle

Well then it’s “as you were” - back to your executor/family/friends to decide what to do. I personally don’t care. I’ll be dead, and I’ve done my best to avoid the fuss and expense.

I searched the university website for “body donation” and got a phone number and email address (dept of biomedical sciences).

There was a lot of info to read about what will happen. I had to let my doctor know so it’s on my medical record, and my best pal is down as the contact person. He has a phone number to ring so they can come and fetch my body asap, and decide if it’s suitable.

What inspired me was a documentary I saw years ago that interviewed a man who’d signed up for donation, then showed the process after he’d died, including dissection (from a distance). They also interviewed the students. It was very moving.

My body is going to a medical school, to be used for student dissection. Once they are finished with it, it will be cremated. My relatives can have the ashes if they want, otherwise it will be disposed of. My name will go up on a plaque in a special memorial garden. It was pretty easy to organise, just a matter of signing consent forms with a witness. Family are ok with it.

There’s a chance my body will be rejected - infectious, too mangled, whatever - and in that case it’s bounced back to family to deal with. I favour forest burial wrapped in an old bedsheet.

Carrot in a box made me laugh so much. I really miss that man.

I bought a pretty shell necklace in Samoa, and then asked the seller what shells it was made from.

He said… “Dolphin’s teeth.”

When I reeled back in horror, he chuckled and said, “Yum yum.”

I have various bits of jewellery made from beef bone, I happily wear leather, but there was something intimate about teeth that made it gross, plus eating dolphins, argh.

I like the Rebecca West quote: “I myself have never been able to find out precisely what feminism is: I only know that people call me a feminist whenever I express sentiments that differentiate me from a doormat.”

Here’s an example of “mansplaining”: I’ve been beekeeping for close to ten years. A gentleman joined our group recently who has had maybe a few months’ experience. Wearing a brand new bee suit and gloves, he proceeded to tell me how to carry out a basic hive inspection. He was not assuming I shared his exact knowledge, he was assuming I knew even less than him.

The term mansplaining came about because it encapsulates a very common scenario. I know a few chaps who constantly explain stuff to me that I know a lot more about than they do, and in a very condescending way. One old codger even patted me on the head and said, “A young thing like you wouldn’t know about MS-DOS.” I bought my first computer in 1984.

I haven’t found mansplaining as prevalent among young men, I must say. They seem more open and egalitarian in their approach, more respectful. Though a friend told me, “It’s because you remind them of their granny.”

In the olden days we would use a fax machine for that.