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Digital Divide

The award didn't come with a dinner, money or even a handshake. And it wasn't exactly what you'd describe as an honor. Yet winning the national "Pickled Skunk Brain" award did bring Monroe County, Indiana, its 15 minutes of...well, recognition.

The award didn't come with a dinner, money or even a handshake. And it wasn't exactly what you'd describe as an honor. Yet winning the national "Pickled Skunk Brain" award did bring Monroe County, Indiana, its 15 minutes of...well, recognition.

Normally, the county's household hazardous waste collection center deals with the safe disposal of paint, batteries and other materials that small businesses or residents bring in. But last spring, the center got an unusual delivery: a jar of preserved fingertips.

A local law firm had used the jar's contents as evidence in a case in which a woman's fingertips had to be removed after splinters from arsenic-treated lumber caused problems. She subsequently sued the manufacturer of the wood.

Quick-thinking Scott Morgan, director of the hazardous materials division of Monroe County's solid waste district, promptly sent off a letter nominating the partial digits for the annual award given by the North American Hazardous Materials Management Association for the most unusual item collected. The county, which had never entered anything in the contest before, earned the plaque.

The other competitors were no slouches, though. There was the partially dissected fetal pig a girl had been keeping to play with, a live hand grenade and a beer keg filled with used motor oil. But those couldn't top the fingertip entry. Says Morgan, "The joke now is that we were the hands-down winner."

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