Stupid Things I Have Done

We had our monthly All-RPSC/NANA Safety Meeting today
and my boss likes to keep it pretty informal since it's
held at 7:30 in the morning and he doesn't want people
to fall asleep. As a result, he walks around the galley
with a microphone and asks people to give anecdotes on
the particular topic. This month, it was "Stupid Things
I Have Done...And Lived To Tell About It". Lots of good
gnarly stories about people losing fingers, coming close
to losing limbs, etc. I volunteered to tell my story
about how on the way to a Safety Meeting in 2002, I fell
and tore my quadraceps tendon resulting in two months of
crutching it around, followed by three months in a ankle
to hip cast. But the story I really wanted to tell that
I always enjoy telling to gross people out (I was
successful this time as well) is the story about my
co-worker and friend, Joe, who I worked with at the Marriott
in Detroit. Joe used to work at a company called Thornapple
Valley. For those of you not from the Midwest U.S., this
is a company that makes sausages, luncheon meats, etc.
When making meat products, there are a lot of leftovers.
Parts of an animal that would make most people turn into
vegetarians if they were to see it processed. All of this
is "useful" and sold to companies that make soap and
makeup. Yes, the stuff women put on their faces. To
store all of these "leftovers", they're kept in a semi-
liquid form in big vats. Almost like swimming pools of
leftover parts. Well...Joe was walking on a catwalk over
one of these vats, slipped and fell in...over his head.
His co-worker had to grab him by the hair and pull him out.
Otherwise he would have drowned...in liquified animal parts.
Ugh...I love this story. Even though I think Joe might be
full of crap and was making it up, it could be true for all
I know. The best part of this story...he told it to us
while we were eating lunch. Ah Joe...classy guy.