This is a long ass story and I'll be real I don't give a shit about rereading it and spell checking and fixing grammar or whatever. So if something sounds weird or is just straight up written badly you'll have to roll with it HIGHKIRK.
Last summer one of my friends did scientific field work with their biology professor out in - what I'm assuming was - the forest and some of the things they found were some deer skulls. Something you may not know about me is that I really like to collect animal bones, especially skulls, despite this however I haven't cleaned any bones, a majority of my collection was bought off of others at flea markets or given to me as gifts. Anyways this friend offered the bones to me and I accepted it, but since she was living in an apartment with my girlfriend and I couldn't make the drive over there she kept it inside of a closet for 2 weeks in a tied up garbage bag. In case you're wondering, no the bones didn't smell that bad, they had a stench but since they were already mostly dry you couldn't really notice it until you got up close enough for a whiff.
Originally I was supposed to be given the bones much earlier, the plan was for my girlfriend to give me the skulls when we went out together on a date. That way I'd be able to clean them all up before the start of the year right at the comfort of my home. Unfortunately she forgot about them, but honestly it might've been for the better - outside of the police, which was a result of me being a fucking moron - considering that I could hardly bring everything I needed for my dorm when I was moving out. But yeah blah blah blah I was on campus 5 minutes away from my girlfriend's dorm and I managed to get all the bones along with buying the supplies needed in town. The process I used for cleaning up bones is really simple, it's a 2 day process but most of it is just letting it sit in a container full of soapy water and occasionally scrubbing it to help break down grime or extra tissue. Anyways I ended up spending like $30 on hydrogen peroxide - mainly used for whitening - and $10 on a trash can.
Now something to keep in mind is that I like referring to skulls as dead bodies or carcasses as a sort of tongue in cheek joke, so I think you can see how this could immediately lead to some issues later down the line. The plan was simple, 30 minutes away from my campus there's a broken bridge - which by the way is perfectly legal to go to - and I was going to work underneath it. My main concern was the smell, again this was my first time bone cleaning so I wasn't sure how strong the stench would be while in the process of cleaning, only for me to find out in the end that I could've just left this in my room since there really wasn't any scent at all when the container was covered. Another nice thing about working underneath a broken bridge is that it's mostly isolated so I wouldn't have to worry about inebriated university students coming in and fucking my shit up.
As I was on my way to the bridge I was on the phone with a friend talking and making jokes about cleaning up dead bodies like the complete fucking idiot I am. At some point I passed by an auto shop that was only a few meters away from the bridge, this will come up later but just know that I completely forgot what I said to catch his attention. The first day of cleaning was rough, I didn't have enough water to submerge the 2nd skull in since it was just absolutely fucking massive so I could only clean the smaller skull and leave it submerged for 24 hours. On top of that there was a swarm of mosquitoes that kept biting my ass and transmitting some unknown disease that I'll die from in 15 years. Surprisingly though, I was expecting the first day to go worse. I ended up just leaving the bucket with the submerged skull and the garbage bag with the other under the bridge as to carry less weight on my way, which would eventually lead to my own personal 1 hour long mini-odyssey.
A day goes by and I'm going back to the bridge, only to find like 2 police cars parked right at the spot where I was at and like at least 3 or 4 officers going around searching the surrounding area. Just saying if I ate food before going to the bridge, I probably would've shit myself. For an hour or so I was just hiding behind a bush near the auto shop keeping an eye on the police just PRAYING they wouldn't take the bodies. Besides the fact that I actually wanted to keep the skulls and have them for myself, if the police took them it was kind of a sign that I unknowingly did something illegal when cleaning. At the time I was just straight up confused because I didn't commit any crimes or anything, maybe environmental damage? I can't really tell you how much damage water and soap cause to the environment but even if it was environmental damage getting like 2 pairs of cops to deal with it is excessive to say the least. While I was spying on the cops I noticed that the mechanic from the auto shop was just staring at me the entire time, occasionally going back inside his store, and then going back out to stare at me. The guy looked fucking pissed, I had no clue why, and in case you're wondering I wasn't on his property either I was across the fucking street near a gas station. Honestly it started to get on my nerves a little like damn mind your own business old man I'm trying to stalk the police. I just gave him a weird what-the-hell-are-you-looking-at kind of look with my hands raised in the end. I ended up calling a different friend to drive me back to my dorm because I was just not in the mood to walk back with like 20 pounds on my back and I ended up explaining everything to him.
It was in that moment that I realized, in my ramblings about cleaning up dead bodies that the mechanic probably overheard my conversation and thought that I was completely serious, and so decided to report me to the police. It sounds so over the top and ridiculous but I swear to you I genuinely don't know what other reason I could've been investigated, I was working in a public area and I hung up the phone by then so I wasn't being loud either. Of course by this point I realized I should probably check up on all my stuff once the police left and bring it back with me, weird smell in my dorm be damned I'd rather deal with that than with the cops and an angry mechanic. You've got to understand that even though I suspected I being investigated for murder I was still extremely nervous over the idea that I committed some unknown serious crime and could have been arrested for it, yes it's irrational but so is sending two patrol cars over for a deer skull, in my mind anything could get me in trouble. I was going to go out early in the morning, check my stuff, and take it back with me if it was still there.
I woke up at 5:00am, just about an hour and a half before sunrise, so I had the benefit of sneaking around in the dark and still getting some amount of sleep. It was absolutely pouring outside but it turned out to be a benefit in the end since I could take my umbrella and use it to hide my face from anybody who was awake, in case the mere act of picking up your stuff after an investigation is itself illegal. It was really tense the whole time, there weren't any police officers awake but any car that passed by was enough to scare me, I was especially dreading going by the auto shop again. Thankfully after that walk I've made it to the bridge with no problem and all my stuff was there. It was obvious the police searched through it, they cut open the garbage bag I was using which was kind of annoying but it was a sign that they didn't care about anything I did. That shit was like the 2nd most relieving this in my entire life and I managed to get one of my skulls cleaning in the end :)
Now I just have to deal with the big one but here's a pic of the one I cleaned.
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