Playing With Dead Things: The Mummification of Beavis I.

My pet rat, Beavis, a slighty stupid, slightly blind, unusually loveable thing that lived on my coffee table, died the morning of May 3rd, 2004. He was mummified very soon afterwards. I did it myself, with the help of my husband. It took about three hours. And I took lots of pictures.

In case it's not already stunningly obvious, or in case you got here from Google and didn't see any of the previous overbearing warnings:

Right-o. That oughta do it. Down to business.

Beavis the rat died at about 8:30 in the morning. The mummification took place at roughly 6:30 in the evening. The corpse spent most of the hours between 8:30 AM and 6:30 PM in the fridge, with an hour or so lag immediately after his assumed death to make absolutely, positively certain he was totally and irrevocably deceased.

After that just-makin'-sure hour of observation, Beav was swaddled in a cloth, placed in his little pet carrier, and stuffed in next to the cider.

No pictures of that. Sorry. And fuck you all, cuz I'm drinking that cider anyway.

Matt, the aformentioned husband, arrived home at around 6:30, and we immediately got to work. Here's the initial set-up.

Ready and waiting...

Beavis was laid out on a slab of cardboard, for obvious sanitary reasons, in the middle of the floor. His swaddling cloth doubled as a dropcloth. Clockwise from the left we can see a little incense to set the mood, a sturdy cardboard box for the actual dessication of the corpse, a bowl of homebrew natron, the very corner of a length of muslin, and an Exact-O knife, destined to be used in ways the Good Lord never intended. Not even a little tiny bit.

'Sup, world.

And this is us.

The pale, yet rugged and capable hand on the left belongs to Matthew. The fudge-colored, sausage-fingered, pretentiously outfitted one on the right is mine. After this shot, you'll only see one person's hands at a time, though; the other set will be taking pictures.

Still life with dead vermin.

Here's Beavis again. Better shot this time.

He might look a little stiff to you. As you've probably already guessed, that's the rigor mortis. Try as we might, we couldn't coax him out of this position. I wish I'd remembered that when I was setting him in the fridge, I would have positioned him more conveniently before his limbs froze up. But no. Duh.

Last chance to look away, guys.

And it begins.

I'm just pointing out the future site of the first cut, here: On the left side of the abdomen, according to ancient Egyptian tradition. As you can see, we've gotten around the whole rigor mortis dilemma with the aid of the washcloth in our own uniquely incompetent way.

Note the nightmarish enormity of Beavis' testicles. All male rats have equally titanic balls. As far as I know, he never used his. He and his cagemate Neil had a special, desperation-forged relationship the Pope would not approve of, but he was always the bottom. Poor Beavis.

It only gets worse. Just so you know.

After about fifteen minutes of effort with the Exact-O knife and, out of frustration, a pair of kitchen shears, this was as far as we'd gotten.

Rat skin is tough. It is TOUGH. It is tougher than I would have ever believed it had any right to be. Cutting it was a two-person job; one to stretch, one to hack. And we'd only just then reached muscle. They should make bulletproof vests out of this crap. Jesus. Impossible.