Fruit Can Totally Mummify. For Reals.

I found a mummified kiwi yesterday noon-ish.

I am totally not making this up. Also, I have pictographic evidence. Photographic. Eh, "pictographic" sounds cooler, and also it is apparently a word because Firefox didn't give me the angry red line, even though it totally gave me the angry red line for "didn't" before I added the T even though "didn't" is totally a word.

Ahem. Pictorial evidence. (Apparently, that is also a word. Actually, I think I already knew that...)

Mummified Kiwi, FTW

Also, FTW is not a word. But I really hope everyone knew that already.

No, I did not just get on to post pictures and no story. So, here is the pathetic excuse for a story that goes along with the delightful mummified kiwi.

I was hanging out in the front yard, putting off working on my novel (which reminds me I need to update the word counter), and basically digging around in the dirt because our front yard has awesome stuff like abandoned snail shells and pieces of glass and also a giant bolt that I think came out of the push-mower we borrowed from some people last summer. Anyway, I came upon this... thing. I had no freaking clue what it was. I didn't want to touch it, either. But I wanted to know what it was 'cause I'm morbidly curious like that. So I poked it with a stick.

...yes. That is the normal response. Don't know what a strange object in the lawn is? Poke it with a stick! That answers all of life's questions!

Except this one. The stick broke, because we're still technically in winter and it snowed a few days ago so the stupid stick was wet and dead and just generally fragile. Still afraid to touch it, I lifted it with two sticks and brought it over near a rock I had stuck in the ground a few minutes prior. Don't judge me.

The dirt was, unfortunately, the only surface within reach of that rock, and each time I tried to poke the thing, it just got more dirt on it. So, I re-relocated it, this time to a larger rock on the lawn.

At this point, I decided trying to break open a strange organic object whose outer covering resembled leather with a rock and a stick simply wasn't going to cut it. Thus, I touched it. With my actual hands. Not, like, fake hands; unfortunately, I do not have a pair of fake hands. I would love some, assuming they didn't replace my real hands, not least because I enjoy discovering stuff in the dirt and some of that stuff is just too gross to touch with real hands.

I digress.

I still could not figure out what it was, so I continued my attempts to open it, since at this time I'd decided it would be better to dissect it than just to poke it with a rock. I peeled it, hoping the leathery outer layer would just be, say, layers of rotten plaster-cloth-stuff and eventually I would get to the center. Well, no such luck. Then I thought, what if it's an animal or bug of some sort, and I get it open and touch bug ichor? That thought disgusted me enough that I went back to the rock.

(If I thought it really *was* an animal, or a living thing in general, I would not have continued my attempts to open it. However, if it had been alive, it was dead by this point, and also I was pretty sure I'd seen this thing before last summer, so it was safe to assume it was very, very dead, or a plant.)

Long story short--well, actually, no, 'cause really this took two seconds or so--the thing opened, spewing forth the most marvelously disgusting green ichor. (I love that word. Firefox has decided it's not a word when followed by a period. However, the first time I typed it, followed by a question mark, Firefox failed to point it out with its red squiggly line of FAIL. Now it underlines it whether it's followed by a question mark or not. Way to exhibit selective spelling racism, Firefox!)

In the end, I decided it was a mummified kiwi. This is the only conclusion that makes sense. Why? The thing is the approximate size of a kiwi, and its innards were green. That is hard-boiled PROOF, peeps!

Anyway, I will post a picture of this marvelously disgusting goop, because I feel like people today haven't been scarred enough by life yet. You're welcome.

I just realized you can't really see the goop, because it totally looks like part of the rock. Oh, well.

And yes, I was being sarcastic.

Update: Even though I actually wrote in the post that I needed to update the word counter... I forgot. Bad Lilli. I'll go do that now.