Well, after I my sister gave birth, she granted me the request of taking her placenta. I was determined to lovingly preserve this miraculous organ. I took it and met up with a friend at a bar. The placenta earned me a free beer. We refrigerated the placenta and I diligently tried to learn how to preserve it. My bandmate Aesop, from Ludicra, had done this before, though rather crudely. I intended to do the best job I could. The internet and phone calls to some strange shops were my main source of information. It took some time, but I eventually pieced together the best way for a layperson to engage in specimen preservation. So others don’t have the difficulty I did, I now present this fully illustrated article on how to preserve your sister’s placenta.
1. Gather the following… a specimen jar, latex gloves, petroleum jelly, some music, five bottles of Everclear grain alcohol (at least 75 ure), and your sister’s placenta.
2. Put on your favorite CD, which is of course Impaled’s Death After Life.
3. Drink some beer.
4. Get your gloves on. This may be your sister, but it’s still… Medical Waste.
5. Dump the Everclear into the specimen jar. You see, in the absence of formalin, which you need a license to get, pure grain alcohol is the best preservative available. Any preservative should be around 70 ure grain alcohol, and Everclear is 75àEasy, peasy, nice and squeezy.
6. Drink some Everclear.
7. Open up the placenta container. Hopefully, the hospital gives you a nice container, instead of a lasagna tray.
8. Dump out the blood. Don’t think about where it came from.
9. Remove the placenta from the container.
10. Wash off the excess blood clots and goop. Be careful, this is just a thin membrane… and don’t lose that umbilical cord down the sink!
11. Carefully place the placenta in the specimen jar.
12. Sweet!
13. Rub petroleum jelly around the lid of the jar. This will act as a sealant for the lid so the alcohol doesn’t evaporate.
14. Cool! You’ve got a piece of a human in a jar. At this point you could call your sister and thank her.
15. Finally… be sure to keep it away from your dog.
I hope this helps anyone who is looking to preserve their sister’s placenta, though these basic directions can be used to preserve any number of things, like mice, octopi, pig hearts… whatever your sick, little heart fancies! Happy bottling.