As my sister got older, she got more and more interested in science. Her room began to accumulate hundreds of assorted pieces of scientific equipment and displays. Although she was interested in just about everything scientific, her main interest seemed to be biology.
She had a couple of cat skeletons (left over from my dad’s anatomy classes several years before), lots of various organs stored in bottles of formaldehyde, dead and mounted insects, little bottles of chemicals and hundreds of other assorted things. Every piece was carefully organized and labeled - my sister has always been extremely organized, even more so than myself.
Belinda was actually using this equipment to perform various experiments. She had this theory that sugar caused cancer, so she purchased some mice and fed them tons of sugar. I don’t know how the experiment turned out, but you could smell her room from ten feet away.
She also loved hamsters. She purchased a special hamster cage system. This consisted of several cages about the size of a small aquarium. They were attached by a few dozen feet of clear plastic tubing, which allowed the small animals to run back and forth between the cages. It was interested to watch the hamsters run around in what they obviously thought of as the perfect apartment complex.
I didn’t enter Belinda’s room very often, mostly because of the very strong smell of hamster which permeated everything. Also, seeing all of those bottles containing what had been living tissue made me feel more than a little uncomfortable.
I understand that after I moved out Belinda acquired even more equipment and materials, and performed lots more experiments. However, when she entered college, a large portion of this equipment stayed behind. After she graduated and got married, the equipment was abandoned. Today it remains in her room at my parents house.
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