I'll pass on the eggs thank you

I don't know why 99% of the time when you get a bunch of emergency service workers together we all start recounting calls that we've attended in an attempt to outgross each other. Sometimes the paramedics will drop by the station or the police officers will swing by to follow up on a call and we'll sit down and put a pot of java on and just go. The bigger and grosser the tale the better. Anything is game.. maggots, limbs, veins, rigor, transection, dissection, priapism.... you name it, there is a story out there for it. And the weird thing is that it doesn't seem to phase us one bit. We could be mid-bite during a meal talking about a trauma call that we had and still dive in for second helpings of prime rib. I am pretty sure it's the gallows humour that keeps us from going cuckoo and able to do what we do for all the gruesome things that we see. Like I've said before, it's not what I see that bugs me so much as is the smells. I think I am that 1% where some calls do stay with me permanently.... ie: after a literal crap call where the smell was so intense I could not sit down for lunch back at the station to eat the egg salad that a crewmate had prepared. I am still leery of egg salad to this very day.