That Beaver's Breath Smells Like Shit

Posted by Killer
My single most favorite fact obtained from The Discovery Channel is that beavers eat their own shit. They eat it only once, and they know the difference. A beaver's diet of wood can be broken down into a nutrient only after passing the section of bowel that is needed to digest said nutrient. So, when a beaver squeezes out a fresh lumber filled poop, he (or apparently a faster, sneakier beaver) will eat the newly made log. The excrement created by eating this is not edible. I imagine this has led to some pretty embarrassing moments for less intelligent beavers, "Oh my God, Jimmy just ate some second shit!" I was enthralling some coworkers this evening with my knowledge of fecal eating beavers when a doctor told me that some Native Americans would have what they referred to as "the second harvest". This involved picking the corn out of their stool to enjoy it a second time. I personally can not verify this from first hand basis (nor from a televised documentary), but I feel this doctor is pretty reliable. When elderly people sit around trying to impress each other with how much harder it used to be in the old days, I bet, "I had to walk ten miles to school in the snow", can not hold a candle to, "I had to pick the corn out of my shit for dinner."
The discussion quickly spiraled down to the fact that some people feel that drinking your own urine has medicinal, as well as, spiritual value. I have actually had a patient, while working in Baltimore, who practiced this belief. She said that many valuable electrolytes are lost in urine. After years of working in the health profession I can safely say that drinking Gatorade also will replace vital electrolytes. NASA has a plan to send a manned mission to Mars within twenty years. It will cost a few hundred billion dollars and the best idea so far for the water supply is to have them drink urine. It will be boiled, then the condensation will be collected, filtered and returned for consumption. I am secretly hoping that they need someone to just go along in order to provide extra urine for the trip. I feel that is the only way I can ever offer anything of value to the space program. Plus, with a captive audience in space for 18 months I will have plenty of time to regale upon them all my knowledge of shit eating beavers.