Well, it seemed like this year's must-have, bad taste Hallowe'en gift for amputees, but sadly it isn't even that cool.

I have often said, and hope I will be proven correct in saying, that someday I firmly believe that technology will have advanced to the point where we can grow new limbs and organs for ourselves to replace others we have been forced to relinquish.  How excited, then, do you think I was when I discovered via a quick survey of the Hallowe'en merchandise at the West Concord 5 & 10 that this technology was already within my reach?

And for only $1.99?

Bargain!  Right?  Right?  It's even the correct leg!  Yes, it's missing a knee, but my interest at this point was strictly clinical, not practical.

The way this works is you soak it in "a large container" of water for "several hours" and it's supposed to absorb the water and get bigger.  Once upon a time, in search for a suitable companion to the plastic triceratops who sits atop my film scanner, I picked up this little fellow at the Concord Toy Shop:

As you can see, treated similarly this lovely green stegosaurus will grow to 600% its packaged size!  600%!  Wow!

I unwrapped my prospective replacement limb with trembling fingers.

I must say, I liked the turn of its ankle!

I dropped it in a gigantic blue glass bowl filled with tap water and set it aside overnight.

After 24 hours, I went to check on its status.  And that's when disappointment set in.

Oh, I guess it's a bit bigger, but it sure ain't no 600% bigger.  This is more like a replacement pinky finger with toes than a grow-your-own replacement limb.  (sigh)

Seriously, I could still pick it up with salad tongs.  Big deal!

I was, however, impressed with the realistic shriveling of the skin.  Though a bit more yellow, this is very much how my left foot would look if I were to soak it in the bath for 24 hours.

(sigh)  I guess I'll have to continue my search for over-the-counter parthenogenesis.  Meanwhile, it's a darned good thing my prosthetic still works.

In other experiments this weekend, it was also proven that one out of one housecat queried prefers wind-up sushi to a wind-up hopping eyeball.

It was an excellent weekend for mad science, wouldn't you say?

*****

REMINDER (or information, if you didn't already know):  Jack P has had a great idea for a Hallowe'en game.  I'll be playing.  How 'bout you?

(Thank you, Goldfish.)

Comments

[alejna]

You are so funny! The pictures were especially helpful. (I found you via NaBloPoMo, by the way. Can I interest you in joining the Ministry of Silly Blogs?
http://nablopomo.ning.com/group/ministryofsillyblogs)

I'm sorry to hear that the new limb didn't meet your expectations.

[TheQueen]

I love the warning on the dinosaur: "Do not swallow." Because having a stegosaurus grow 600% in your belly acid might be uncomfortable.

[Sara]

Alejna, thank you for the kind invitation. I will check it out. I'm already a de facto consultant with the Ministry of Silly Walks, after all. ;)

Your Majesty, yes. And what else struck me about that was the probability that the person most likely to swallow a toy stegosaurus is also the person least likely to be able to read the warning on the package. But all this should make for a ripping episode of ER or House someday, don't you think?

[michelle of bleeding espresso]

Well at least that stegosaurus has something to eat now, because feeding it a tiny leg would be silly.

[elizabeth]

Yes, we are going wild shopping too - I am not sure why halloween is the only time us people with disability humour can aquire what we need. (I do question the basis of the exponential growth via the 600% - I think meant a 1 inch leg would be six inches not the doubling ratio which would make it three feet long as advertised - I could be wrong on the math though since during word problem I would ask things like; "Is there a way to speed up the train...perhaps with guns?")

As for me, Hottopic is selling fairy, bat and black angel wings half price - SCORE! Plus a "catpaw whip" - which is a riding crop with a cute cats paw at the end - I can not yet concieve of even a farfetched use for this but as I have a lot of "thinking time" until it arrives - I am sure there is one - probably disciplining AB's who don't get out of my chair's way quickly enough (Feel the lash of the cat!)

[Sara]

"I am not sure why halloween is the only time us people with disability humour can aquire what we need."

Well, you know, Hallowe'en is all about fear and fantasies about each other's deepest and darkest.

It's fun to realize that you are living someone else's nightmare, isn't it? Whee.

[Ron Sullivan]

The resemblance of that foot to those teeny feeeetus feet lapel pins and posters is, well, remarkable. Shirley there's something to be done with that.

[Sara]

Besides feeding it to the stegosaurus?

No, I like the idea of gluing a pinback to it and wearing it for Hallowe'en -- in its shrunken form, of course; I don't want it oozing water all over me all night.

Or maybe I'll wear it year-round. It might reduce some of the questions I get such as, "What did you do to your leg?"

heh

[elizabeth]

Sara, I found an arm from the same company today and told the store your story about how it did not grow to promised preportions. They said, you just have to keep soaking it - that they had a "severed" hand and soaked it for 4+ days and it did get larger than a genuine hand. Dunno, just thought I would pass the info along - I found it in a shop that had a skull mug with a serpent wrapping in and out of eyeballs with tail for handle on sale! (like something so cool could ever be "seasonal!") - then I went and chatted up this cute girl in the pirate shop and got her playing "Pretty Pirate" on youtube about Jack and Orlando Bloom's love affair, and slash fiction when Linda wheeled me away. She said she hadn't become such an enabler for my fantasy affairs that I she was willing to wheel me into stores to flirt with girls in pirate costumes. Sigh. Still...got a mug!

[Sara]

Ooooooooooh, okay. I'm going to try soaking it from now to Hallowe'en, then. If it's not bigger by Hallowe'en, I'm turning it into a pin, as suggested (perhaps inadvertently) by esteemed correspondent Ron Sullivan, above.

"like something so cool could ever be 'seasonal!'"

Oh, seriously!!!

This is a very surreal tale, but after that wedding in Southern California, my sister, the mother of the groom, her sister, and I found ourselves in a Spencer Gifts in Southern California. Now, I didn't expect to find anything there, what with all the Playboy-themed paraphernalia and whatnot, but as I was on a trip without him, I was keeping my eyes peeled for a present for my true love. He had recently injured himself doing tai chi, so this is what I did eventually find. Even when he's not limping, "the weight of [his] gothic sorrow" can be quite severe, so locating a helping hand (cough, cough) was really quite a blessing.

[elizabeth]

That is a tres' cool gothic heavy hand of sorrow - I hope he appreciated it; I was about to order it online and then realized the ability to use wheelchair AND can is rather tricky.

By the by - I also found some blink tattoos for people with all sorts of glitter and fake jewels and told the woman there how you pimped your leg and I wanted to trick my chair and asked her where she thought it would best go. Turned out she was one of those people who thought that crips should do their shopping in silence as when I asked, styling it against part of my frame if the temp tattoo would stick to titanium she went "And how would I know that!" literally threw up her hands and that's all I saw of her. This all in a women's shop called (of all things) 'Surrender'

Also found in same town a original wicker edwardian 'invalid' chair as seen in my Halloween desire list but the antique dealer REFUSED to sell it (not that I could afford it anyway but I was ready to see how far cleavage and puppy dog eyes could get me).

Good luck on your bargin (albiet boneless) prosthetic englargement project (ooooh, now it does sound like something dirty)

[Sara]

Very sad about the wicker chair and also the strange Surrender-monkey (sorry; couldn't resist). Is that wicker chair what was then referred to as a "bath chair"? Why do I think so?

And why do I have an image in my mind of Sidney Greenstreet playing an evil fat cripple sitting in one with a walking stick? And why does that make me think of Goldfish's brilliant post about James Bond villains?

My true love enjoys his walking stick most when he employs it as a symbolic sceptre-type thing. Every mad scientist, megalomaniac, or goth person of regal bearing needs one, right?

The repeat experiment is working out very interestingly, by the way. The boneless expanding item is already way larger than it got in the blue glass bowl.

I put it in a smaller, tighter-fitting bowl. I hesitate to guess what that might have to do with its growth.