When Kansas and Styx were fighting it out for best band using an organ, I was in high school. OK, there are many stories from that time but two come to mind immediately: the cow head story (later) and the plaster parts story (now).
My friend Jeff M's father was an orthodontist. This profession requires making plaster casts of people's teeth in order to construct Marquis de Sade-level appliances to force said teeth into perfectly pleasing position. To do this, a rubbery, gooey substance called alginate is applied to the teeth. This solidifies so that plaster can be poured in to create a positive of the model. Why the dissertation on straightening supplies? Because given a few dozen boxes of alginate, access to the orthodontic offices and the cover of night -- not to mention the hormone-deranged thinking of two 16-year-old boys, there were a few ideas that spawned to help us kill a little time in our latter-formative years.
I'm talking, of course, about plaster body parts. Our first idea was to create plaster casts of our hands. We used box after box of alginate creating many different finger/hand configurations. We poured the plaster into the alginate. After it hardened we tore away the milk carton-like box the alginate came in, pealed away the alginate, and revealed the perfectly white, perfectly formed plaster replica of our hands. We made several hands the first night we did this.
Not knowing what to do with them once they were created, we threw them down the street toward a dumpster at the end of a cul-de-sac. This alone paints a strange picture as we were not too careful to actually hit the garbage can, but rather let the plaster digits shatter into pieces in the road. Oh to know the thoughts of the adult who found those.
We then got the great idea to bring dates to the alginate parties. We did this under the guise that we wanted to create a fist-shaped gear shift for our cars. We drove stick shift cars in those days (said with a certain swagger and mist for the good ol' days). All day long we would grasp girl's fists and determine if the were worthy of being cast -- literally. I did get one I liked. Small, fitting, and I even painted it blue to match my VW. I drilled out the wrist and epoxied it onto the shifter. It worked for many moons.
In time, boredom set in. Who didn't see this coming? Jeff and I decided we needed to do a face. This, however, presented a problem. The fists and feet (did I mention we did feet?) could fit in the alginate boxes so we would make a whole box of alginate right in the box, shove hands and feet in, and wait. Face: no structure. Our only alternative to using alginate was to use plaster to make the negative and then fill it with plaster to make the positive, and then crack away the negative. This in not uncommon but it was our first try.
Jeff was the victim. To breathe, we found some surgical tubing and stuffed them up each nostril. For lubrication, we used Vasoline on his face. Then, we applied a generous thickness of plaster to his face, and waited. It hardened. When it was time to take it off of his face, we gently turned him over to allow gravity to assist and with minimal effort it separated from his face – except for his eyelashes. We gently tugged on the now hardened negative of his face and it wouldn't budge.
At one point, the entire weight of the plaster mask was hanging from his eyelids. Panic. After several minutes of teasing and coaxing, he finally RIPPED the mask from his face, taking approximately three fourths of his eyelashes with it. I think he experienced pain.
We took the eyelash-plucking mask and poured a boatload of plaster in it. We waited, then chipped off the mask. The resulting positive, much like a death mask, looked remarkable like Jeff with two strange anomalies: the nostrils were enlarged as a result of the surgical tubing and, you guessed it, it had eyelashes. Spooky.
“What body part is next?” we asked with hormonal eagerness. Of course, a butt. Jeff was again the victim. We piled a large mountain of dirty lab towels in the middle of the floor of the lab. Jeff dropped trou and 'peeked' on the towel mountain. I had the dignified job of applying the large amount of plaster. Then we waited – not much of an awkward conversation there, and then Jeff slowly arose and tried to remove the shell from his butt. With minimal effort it separated from his butt – except his butthole hair. Really not a pretty picture here, but the psychosis continues.
At one point it was hanging from this hair. He got brave and RIPPED it out and then we commenced pouring the positive. We chipped away the shell to reveal the butt and guess what. It had hair. Jeff was grossed out enough that he decided to burn the hair out. So, he got a lighter and burned the hair out. This had the desired effect of removing the hair but had the undesirable effect of turning the crack brown/black. Stark white butt, browneye.
We decided this was a bad deal so we took it to my house where I had some sandpaper. We were sanding the butt in the family room when my mom caught us. I think she hasn't really recovered from that one. I kind of wonder what happened to that thing. Jeff still has the face. With eyelashes.
NO, we never tried a wee-nah.
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