Hey there, It’s Jennifer Cureton With Buckhead Taxidermy. I wanted to lighten up my posting with the funnest thing I think has ever happened in my shop. It started out as a normal day. lots to do but not a lot of traffic. One of those nice and quiet days. Usually I get a lot accomplished on those kind of days.
Around 3 o’clock in the afternoon a customer came in the shop to check out our work and ask a few questions.; My husband was chatting with him as I was diligently working (I mean fighting) with skinning out a water logged turkey. It was hot and I was pretty nasty at this point so I let him handle the customer. The man was inquiring about his options on a turkey mount and he mentioned that he would love to have a whole body mount done but his wife was ” TOTALLY” grossed out about animals, hunting, and yes…taxidermy work. He even went on to tell us that she was out in the car because she refused to come inside.
My husband decided he would take a bash at using his good southern charm to coax her into coming inside to help ease her mind about the taxidermy business. He just wanted to help the poor guy out. I truly thought my husband was wasting his time when low and behold.. here she came, walking in like at any moment one of the animals might jump off the wall and eat her. My husband talked to her for a bit and slowly you could see she was beginning to relax.
Mean while I am still fighting.. I mean working on the darn turkey. As I am finishing it up the lady gets curious and ask me what I was working on. I tell her I’m skinning out a turkey. She walks over and stands right next to me like I might save her if the bird were to try to hurt her. I take one of my tools to pop the eye out of the socket, and to my surprise she leans over to get a better look. It was hard to believe but that lady was no more than a foot or so away from the head of the bird. You could tell she was interested, but scared to death all at the same time.
When I went to pull the eyeball out of the bird to my horror…. ” eyeball juice squirted out and landed across her face and in her hair, ” and on her white North Face pullover. I just gasped, and wanted to see what her reaction was going to be. I thought she would laugh I would get her a clean towel and that would be it. I mean that’s how I would have handled it.
Well her eyes got as big as half dollars.. her head turned white as a paper towel and she let out this God scream. She went on screaming over and over as though someone was being hacked into little pieces in front of her. I ran around the table to help and comfort her..(trying my darned hardest not to bust out laughing).
When I reached her she shoved me away and screamed…..
” LOOK AT WHAT YOU HAVE DONE TO ME! ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME? I THINK I AM GOING TO DIE!”
I calmly told the woman I meant her no harm and that eyeball juice could not kill her. I even added in a little joke that eyeball juice was good for your hair. WOW was that a huge mistake. She flew into a rage that it was in her hair. Screaming over and over to get it out that it was burning. My husband and her husband are just standing there with their mouths open watching me trying to get this woman under control.
She would not let me help or touch her. She really thought I did it on purpose. Well as each second passes she is getting more and more upset. Finally she begins to hyperventilate. I beg her to sit down and let me get her a glass of water but she acts like I am going to put eyeball juice in the glass.
People this woman has went completely bonkers. She tells her husband that she is getting light headed and that she thinks she is having a panic attack. Her husband calls 911 and an ambulance picks her up from my shop about 15 minutes later. Her husband apologizes as he is getting into his BMW and speeds off after the ambulance. My husband and I are dumbfounded. We couldn’t comprehend what just happened.
I mean one minute we are working, the next a lady is sprayed with eyeball juice- has a panic attack, and leaves our shop in an ambulance.
“Dude that one heck of a day.”
Well about 2 days later I sent the lady a card in the mail hoping she was alright and telling her how sorry I was. About 3 days after that I got a letter from the Better Business Bruea stating that our business had personally attacked this lady with eyeball juice causing her to have a panic attack and that if we did not pay her medical bills she would take us to court stating that we had caused her humiliation and pain and suffering.
The (BBB) closed the complaint. She never took us to court. And I hate to say I think I have lost all of this guys future business. I laugh every time I think about this story and I hope It made you laugh too.
Note to taxidermist… when a customer is hovering over you be careful of what you do.
Welcome to Jenn’s World. Jennifer this is really great.Keep up the good work.