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 Wet, Fuzzy, and Weird: 

Hairless Kitten from a Carnie?

I purchased my first wet specimen (named Tickle) from a carnie. 

Tickle's Story:

When the freak show behind my last job shut down and started renovating, they told me that they had some cat taxidermy. They told me this of corse to try to freak me out and make me squeal because of my love of cats, but I reacted quite the contrary. Originally I wanted to purchase their mounted 3-eyed cat, but it was out of my price range. Instead, they told me that they had a stillborn hairless cat. The purchase was instant: $200 later I had my new baby just out of arms reach. I went to pick up the baby up at 10pm that night and the Carnie man held out my new treasure. 

Tickle's Preservation

According to the Carnie's word, the kitten should be around 19-21 years old as of 2022, and the liquid inside is just as old (it looked like dehydrated pee when I first got it, as shown below. The alcohol the kitten is stored in it ethanol alcohol, a very strong alcohol that dehydrated the specimen quickly. It requires fast and thorough work to get the specimen to turn out perfectly, otherwise the water-filled cavities of the creature will cave in completely.

Soon after I got the specimen, I replaced the ethanol alcohol so it would no longer look like it was floating in pee, as well as getting rid of "floaters" in the jar that looked disgusting.  

Tickle's Appearance

The kittens head is not much bigger than a quarter, the entire body fitting perfectly in my palm. A lot of people upon seeing him the first time do not think that he is real, as he looks like he's made of rubber or plastic from afar. once you get up close to the little guy, you can tell that he is truly real.  He has a laceration on his leg, which I guess may be from the fragile skin when injecting the specimen with ethanol alcohol. 


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