Osteological Mishaps

skull
Originally uploaded by michaelwrice@gmail.com.

My life gets more absurd with each day. Last week I missed a Physical Anthropology lab in which we were to identify the bones in the human body. Not rocket science. But I missed, due to “supporting the global war on terror”, and had to make it up this morning.

So here is what my make up lab consisted of (this does not even remotely resemble what the other students had to do): I had to stand in the middle of the teacher assistants office, which was filled with stuffy grad students, and identify not the bones of the human body, but instead every bone of the skull. For those of you who are osteologically illiterate (I place myself within this group), the skull is basically the most complicated section as far as bones, features, and sutures go. Anyone who knows their head from their ass (or thigh bone for that matter) can identify a femur.

At one point I mistakenly identified the sagittal suture as the coronal suture, and an audible sigh escaped from at least two of the TA’s. I was about two seconds from ripping open the guys head to find out just exactly where that aforementioned suture is.