They Don’t Have The Heart For This Kind Of Work

(We are a medical research lab at a university. We have an undergraduate who has come into our lab to get a little bit of experience. We are euthanizing a rat in order to use its heart for experiments. We let her watch as we inject the rat with a euthanasia drug — the same stuff they use for dogs. As soon as the rat is unconscious, we open its chest, and extract the heart while the tissue is still alive. We finish with the process to extract the tissue and what-have-you.)

Research Assistant: “And that’s it. Now we have a whole dish of cardiac tissue!”

Undergrad: “Oh, that’s really cool. So, when is he going to wake up?”

Research Assistant: “I’m sorry. Who?”

Undergrad: “The rat. You put him to sleep. When is he going to wake up?”

Research Assistant: *long pause* “Um, I’m sorry. He’s not going to wake up.”

Undergrad: “What do you mean?”

Research Assistant: “We just removed his heart from his chest. He’s not going to wake up. He’s dead.”

Undergrad: “WHAT? YOU KILLED HIM?!”

Research Assistant: *sheepish* “I’m sorry. I thought you knew that was going to happen.”