One Man's Crap is Another Man's Treasure

Imagine spending seven years collecting rare specimens in the jungle to help write your doctorate dissertation -- only to have the university cleaning crew throw your collection away.

This happened to poor Daniel Bennett of Leeds University in the UK. The Daily Mail has the story here.

The odd thing is what he spent 7 years collecting:

A university has apologised to a scientist for throwing away his treasured collection of lizard [feces].

Graduate biologist Daniel Bennett, who spent seven years combing inhospitable jungles to amass his unique hoard, was told the 77lb bag had been thrown out during a lab clear-out. . .

Leeds University bosses admitted the gaffe, saying in a statement: 'The loss of these samples was an unfortunate mistake. They were thrown away in error because they were in an unmarked bag.'

My first thought was "lizard what?" followed closely by "seven years?!?!" followed by "77 LBS!!!"

What a load of crap! . . . Literally! Mr. Bennett was really upset:

Mr Bennett said: 'To some people it might have been just a bag of lizard s***, but to me it represented seven years of painstaking work searching the rainforest with a team of reformed poachers to find the [feces] of one of the world's largest, rarest and most mysterious lizards.'

'Whether it was the largest collection of lizard s*** in the world is uncertain. . . [but] Its loss left me reeling and altered the course of my life forever,' he told the Times Higher Education Supplement.

Mr Bennett said he had turned down an offer of £500 in compensation by the university and intended to 'see them in court'.

I sympathize with both sides here. I have a doctorate, and would have really been upset had anyone destroyed my materials while I was working on it. . . .

On the other hand, what is a cleaning crew supposed to do when they find an unmarked 77lb bag of crap sitting in a laboratory?

I think the lesson we can learn from this is two-fold:

• First: One man's crap really is another man's treasure, and
• Second (and of admittedly limited utility for most of us) Always, and I mean always, clearly and legibly label your giant bags of crap.

If this post saves even one giant bag of rare animal droppings from being thrown out, then all my work will have been worth it.

PS: Not to worry, the university says he will get his degree on time