BWE
Posts: 1902
Joined: Jan. 2006
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Well, if ya don't want to guess, I'll tell you.
First, after my drink, I got an old skinning knife out of my basement and a sharpening stone. Then, we took a walk over to his house. I had dad get me another drink and jr. and I went to the sink to learn how to sharpen a knife.
The whole time he was yappin about how I had to go see the raccoon it was sooooo cool. But A. the knife was seriously dull and B. I was still trying to figure out what I was going to do. Dad came back with the drink -I shouldn't have let him choose, Vodka and orange juice :( - and asked if I skinned all the deer we pick up off the highway or if the younger guys do that. I told him that we are a highly specialized agency and that I deal more with fish than roadkill but we have an elite team of deerskinners who work 24/7 to make sure they got skinned when they were still fresh. (I did spend some time talking about rabies though) They bought it hook, etc. I didn't tell them till later that there aren't any deerskinners where I work. It took jr. a long long time to get the knife even moderately sharp so I finally finished up for him. Then, with him bouncing around (dad too) and a set of thick rubber gloves for all three of us I walked out to the garage with them.
One thing about skinning: it's a lot harder with the viscera still inside an animal. If the animal is bloated, it's real real important not to pop the belly. Stinky.
We got the cooler out to the back yard, pulled out the dead ratty thing (spring isn't the right time of year for good pelts) I skinned it's belly, started the legs and under its tail and gave the knife to jr. Dad went and got me Another drink -too strong, oops...- while I explained technique to the kid. He moved pretty slow and it was a fairly warm evening so rocky raccoon started getting a little bigger. By this time, I was paying a little less attention. Jr was putting holes all over Rocky so I cut off the tail and went up the backbone and gave him back the knife. I told him not to try to skin the head just to cut off the hide right there. I finished my drink. Jr. misunderstood me right about the time I was explaining to him and dad that there's no deer skinning crew and he decided to try to cut off the head and leave it in the skin.
I will never ever ever help a neighbor kid try to skin roadkill again in my life. My wife made me shower twice. Jr. vomited.
They did get a skin which I refused to help them tan, told them to learn how on the internet, scrape and salt. That's all the better I could do at that point. Rocky went into a hole in the backyard, (deep).
I was drunk. I couldn't help laughing. Dad wasn't happy. etc.
So, when the neigbor kid asks you to skin a raccon, don't drink vodka and orange juice. That's the moral.
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Who said that ev'ry wish would be heard and answered
When wished on the morning star
Somebody thought of that, and someone believed it
Look what it's done so far
The Daily Wingnut
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