Can I Offer You Some Ice Cream,... Granita,... Placenta?

My sister's placenta is in her freezer. That's right, her placenta. In her freezer. She just gave birth at home to her second child (she has a five year-old girl and now a little boy). Now let's just talk about home birth for a minute, shall we? You may think that I will argue against it from a cautionary standpoint, such as what if something were to go wrong. While this is a concern of mine, my sister informs me that it is statistically very safe, and that girl does her research, so I believe her. It is actually the mess that bothers me the most. Have you given birth? I have -- twice -- and that is one mess that I want someone else besides me cleaning up, thank you very much. Seriously, I don't even like to clean the bathroom, or vacuum for that matter, so dealing with who knows how many gallons of blood on my bedsheets? I'll pass. Now you may be saying that obviously the husband could clean it up. To which I say, is there a husband out there alive who could do that and EVER want to touch his wife again "in that way," and if there is then I would love to hear from him because he is either a saint or has a stomach of steel.

So let's get back to that placenta now. In the freezer. My sis is kind of crunchy, as in granola. I like to think of myself as a little on the crunchy side, too, but she is like a Grape Nuts solid crunch to my little Rice Crispies wimper. Now rest assured, she is not going to eat the placenta on the first birthday of her son or anything like that. She IS, however going to bury it in the ground and plant a tree on it. Apparently, it is packed with nutrients and the tree will grow super fast and be lush and green and all of that good stuff that we all think a tree should be. While this is all good and fine, I thought, could you ever look at that tree the same again? That's when I realized the sheer brilliance of her plan. Just imagaine the possibilities. When your kid gets older and misbehaves, you could say to him, "Boy, don't MAKE me go get a switch from the placenta tree and whoop yo ass!" (Don't freak -- I have never "switched" my children, nor do I use phrases like "whoop yo ass". And my sister doesn't either.)

OR, even better, you could plant some sort of fruit tree on top of the placenta (I told her to do a blood orange or navel orange, ha ha, but somehow she doesn't think this whole placenta planting event is as funny as I do). Then when neighbors come over to visit, you could offer them a piece of fruit and when they are on their third bite or so, you could just casually throw out a statement like, "Isn't that orange just delicious? It's so plump and juicy because I grew it on top of my placenta!" Mmmmm, mmmm, good!