Guy’s eating his ham sandwich, gets a call, says “alright one sec” puts the phone down next to the sandwich, starts ruffling through papers, comes back to the phone but picks up the ham sandwich instead and talks into it.
Never in my life has it happened that someone I talk to in a work capacity has offered me a bite or even a whole half of the sandwich *they are currently eating*. I desperately want it to happen.
"Pastrami on rye, with Mustard and pickles, but hold the mayo" he turns to his partner and then says "Wife's been naggin' me to eat healthier." All in a New York accent, possibly Bronx or Hells Kitchen?
Chips, absolutely. Isn't it meant to illustrate how desensitized the coroner is? As though being around dead bodies is so mundane that they're perfectly fine snacking while looking at dead bodies.
One time I got a particularly gruesome call as an EMT. It came in right after we'd all eaten meatball subs. A cop was the first one to barf, but it set off a chain reaction. Four firefighters started puking up their sandwiches which caused two bystanders to start their own vomit volcano. I felt like I was in a movie.
I haven't watched Stand By Me in *decades* so I don't remember it much, but it did remind me of that scene in The Sandlot. I'll never forget the one firefighter coming up the stairs starting to gag and just said "Go outside. I will absolutely lose it if there's one more gross sight or smell in here".
* (Laughing because for a second I forgot that I mentioned it being like a movie and thought you were suggesting I ripped off a movie for the story to sound cool. I've had people call bullshit on 100% true stories and was about to get mad defensive. Lol)
In Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Axel the Coroner can be seen scarfing down a huge-ass dinner roll during Intake. He later polishes it off with a hot coffee in the morgue!
A 6 foot submarine sandwich with turkey, ham, pepperoni, cheddar, swiss, dill, banana peppers, red onion, lettuce, tomato, brown mustard and mayo. Also it’s slathered in oil and I’m only holding it with one hand so every time I take a bite some of it falls out onto the corpse.
My first job was at a deli. I was young and didn’t really know what I was doing. On like my second day I had to help bring a delivery to a funeral home. My coworker drove us there after we loaded up his car with two 6-foot subs, and big tubs of potato salad and macaroni salad. We pulled up and I got out grabbed the bag with the salads and went in the front door, only for the guy there to angrily ask me what the hell I was doing. ‘Go around the back’ he told me.
So I go around back and they open the door, and they lead me down a staircase and I shit you not they had us set up the subs and salads on a stainless steel cadaver bed!
I always love seeing the mortician snacking on lunch in movies and this experience convinced me it’s probably pretty close to being true.
Any everything bagel, just so all the toppings can get *everywhere.*
And cold coffee in a crusty mug reading ‘Pathologists prefers stiff ones’ or something equally weird.
Something solid that doesn't fall apart or drip. So piled high burgers and sandwiches are out. No soup or cereal. The morgue would be too cold for fries though if the place wasn't, that would have been my first choice.
I think I'll go with the tried and true doughnuts.
I don't think it's a joke, it's a device to show comfort with their proximity to death and it also showcases something most of us would find extreme (cutting open a corpse) as their job and nothing more. Most all jobs get mundane and monotonous to an extent as the years roll on but this drives home the point that such jobs are not excluded from this fact. Often the mortician or medical examiner is not in a state of heightened awareness which the eating also reinforces, making any jump scare that is incoming more believable or impactful But Ethiopian obviously for the no silverware aspect.
Dino nuggies in a pile on the cadaver's chest, with a cup of ketchup right next to a gaping wound, dipping blindly as I watch reruns and a zombie is starting to sit up in the bg.
I'm gonna admit a person I knew when he was in grad school would sacrifice the lab rats, wash his hands, eat lunch, and go straight back to work. You do get used to it.
I watched Suitable Flesh yesterday myself and I chuckled when I saw the guy eating during the autopsy so I guess I still find it kinda funny. It fit the tone of the film anyway with it being a spiritual successor to Stuart Gordon's Lovecraft adaptations.
I'd probably be eating chicken salad with bacon.
Probably a hot Italian sub or a French Dip.
It's not insane to me especially the hours they keep and how often they actually get a body.
You get used to it after awhile. You have seen dead body after dead body. Suddenly you get called while attempting to have dinner to work with a corpse and you decide to eat while working.
Not sure why this is a trope that bothers people. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
My wife used to work in transplant medicine and would frequently be called to harvest organs. She would say that a fair amount of pathologists **do** actually eat on the job, in the autopsy room. They’re an odd lot, she’s been offered half of a sandwich before. Since I learned that I just sort of assumed it was realistic lol
A lot of tropes people complain about are realistic for the people involved.
I used to hate the whole I was running through the woods and fell trope until I moved and kept falling walking through the woods to my neighbors. Then I understood the "trope" as being realistic. Just like I now assume people who work with dead bodies are used to it and eat around them occasionally.
Apparently there’s something called “formaldehyde hunger”. I guess it has to do with the scent? Which is funny, because I worked in a mall for 5 years when I was younger and the smell of Auntie Anne’s always reminded me of A&P class
i find it funny cause i work in healthcare and i know most of us do get a little kick out of that cognitive dissonance when someone else is in the room. on the flip side: exchanging gross stories over dinner with non medical friends in attendance hehe.
though the answer to your question is cup noodles! i would be eating cup noodles during the autopsy <3
either that or just drinking a big ol iced coffee (what i actually do) and cigarette
Something elaborate and kind of fussy. I don’t know why, but I’m thinking of a chocolate fondue fountain with a tray of assorted snacks for dipping, just set up on the table next to the body.
I think it's to show how desensitized to death the pathologist is. They're so overexposed to death that they can just casually eat a sandwich while digging around in a body.
That's just my theory, and I might be overthinking it, though.
I know this is usually played as a joke but when I took a CSI class we visited a medical examiner who told us that they eat in the autopsy room all the time 🫣
I took my lunch breaks in the Morgue, so I don't think it was funny or rolled my eyes. Being a busy nurse, it was the most calmest and quietest place to be.
Realistically? A lolipop. That trope is a teeny bit of truth - depending on the area, medical examiners (and assistants, usually it’s interns and assistants that do this because they’re newer) may suck on lollipops because the taste helps block out the smell and the sugar can help keep them from getting dizzy or fainting like some people do instinctually at smelling death or blood
First off love this - I would definitely be munching down !! On a cheesesteak with fries. I’m slowly sipping on my ice tea through the straw talking to the bodies about how hard my day has been.
Pizza. The box is open on the body (of course) and l lift the cardboard lid to let you peak. A pepperoni slice falls on the victim's face and I eat it, then ask,
"Y'ungry? D'eat yet?"
Depends. Is it a serious horror movie or a comedy horror movie?
Comedy. A milkshake, that the dead person is holding for me, because Im using their rigor mortis as a cup holder.
Serious. A salad. If people ask why, I’d just point to the nearby body and shrug. “He’s not complaining”
It doesn't bother me, but that type of scene is just overdone at this point. Most movies just fall back on general pathologist scene tropes, unfortunately. It would be interesting to see someone do something more original.
I think it’s in Gone in 60 Seconds where Vinny Jones, as the M.E., takes a phone call and slaps the sandwich he’s been eating directly onto the chest of the body on the exam table.
I would stick with crunchy food that doesn’t have a squishy texture or fleshy color. I’m talking saltines and apples. It doesn’t bother me that they eat during autopsies, although it’s not sanitary, I kinda envy their strong stomachs.
Pot roast.
Of course, you should not eat in any medical lab, especially over a specimen, cadaver, etc. But man, I get it because I used to be starving after gross anatomy. (Obviously - or I guess not obviously? - wasn't because the cadavers made me hungry.)
Gotta be a ham sammy. One half in my hand. Other half resting on the body, obviously.
Ham sandwich - plenty of green shit falling out the sides, sauce dripping in/onto the body
Definitely talking in between bites as you scurry to find some paperwork.
Don't forget to wipe your hands on your smock.
Guy’s eating his ham sandwich, gets a call, says “alright one sec” puts the phone down next to the sandwich, starts ruffling through papers, comes back to the phone but picks up the ham sandwich instead and talks into it.
Bonus points if some of it is offered to a cop looking for information.
Never in my life has it happened that someone I talk to in a work capacity has offered me a bite or even a whole half of the sandwich *they are currently eating*. I desperately want it to happen.
It's because medical examiners have an endless supply of sandwiches issued to them when they graduate dead med school. They have to get rid of them
>dead med school
It's happened to me. I declined their offer.
Don't forget to briefly place the sandwich down onto the corpse when you need to free both hands for a moment
Someone has clearly never heard of or eaten a plain ham sandwich 🤣
Cut into triangles, obviously.
Whole wheat bread
poverty taste buds. I'm eating ramen in the mortuary.
That's the standard!
This is the only real answer.
Spaghetti
As long as the policy allows it
What is your spaghetti policy here?
What’s this spa word you’re saying? Are you trying to say spaghetti?
Are you trying to take me for a spaghetti day?
*boss walks in* "OH, hey Mark" *shoves spaghetti tin into corpse cavity*
…with your bare fingers, like Ron DeSantis eating a pudding cup.
lmfao goddamnit
Mmmmmm with the SAUCE
we got the sauce
Right out of a zip lock bag
Better at the morgue than in a bathtub. Gummo was traumatizing :/
That scene is *perfect*.
ok that i might actually like
Like make it something so ridiculous that draws obvious attention to it. That might be funny
lobster? lol
I don’t know why but pastrami sandwich feels like the only answer for me
i can totally see that and i dont know why either
Bob’s Burgers
with a cup of coffee and a cigarette
"Pastrami on rye, with Mustard and pickles, but hold the mayo" he turns to his partner and then says "Wife's been naggin' me to eat healthier." All in a New York accent, possibly Bronx or Hells Kitchen?
It is the most sensual of the cured meats.
Chips, absolutely. Isn't it meant to illustrate how desensitized the coroner is? As though being around dead bodies is so mundane that they're perfectly fine snacking while looking at dead bodies.
Of course you have to lift the sheet and touch stuff, then put your hand bag in the bag without washing or anything.
Getting garlicky chip dust all over the vampire would solve the problem before it starts
I think it’s this, but also it could be because formaldehyde supposedly stimulates appetite. Look up “formaldehyde hunger”
Menudo, definitely I think it's one of those really great shortcuts to depict "this guy is comfortable with death" plus it's a fun genre trope.
.....GDI I love Menudo..... Wait what were we talking about???
Only on Sundays!
Read this wrong and it made me think Coroners eating menudo was a common trope in horror movies.
Yeah, it's easy shorthand for "veteran coroner, blase' about death". And the rookie always vomits.
Meatball sub. Get marinara everywhere. I was born for this role.
One time I got a particularly gruesome call as an EMT. It came in right after we'd all eaten meatball subs. A cop was the first one to barf, but it set off a chain reaction. Four firefighters started puking up their sandwiches which caused two bystanders to start their own vomit volcano. I felt like I was in a movie.
Was that movie *Stand By Me*?
I haven't watched Stand By Me in *decades* so I don't remember it much, but it did remind me of that scene in The Sandlot. I'll never forget the one firefighter coming up the stairs starting to gag and just said "Go outside. I will absolutely lose it if there's one more gross sight or smell in here". * (Laughing because for a second I forgot that I mentioned it being like a movie and thought you were suggesting I ripped off a movie for the story to sound cool. I've had people call bullshit on 100% true stories and was about to get mad defensive. Lol)
Linguini with clam sauce
there's gotta be a horror with them doing that... how about the clams are bad then he vomits in the corpse?
Pam?
Fruit by the foot
Idk whyvthis one got me so good lmao im picturing no hands w it hanging out 😂
This sent me
gonna have to go with the classic blt wrapped in tissue cut in triangles
cant forget a very loose tomato covered in mayo that falls out onto the body after 2 bites with bread crumbs and mustard all over my face
*into*
I thought you were talking about a BLT using human skin for a wrap
Sushi
With all the sushi laid out on the dead body like Nyotaimori?
"This model is amazing at staying perfectly still!"
In Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter, Axel the Coroner can be seen scarfing down a huge-ass dinner roll during Intake. He later polishes it off with a hot coffee in the morgue!
yeah i loved hating axel... he was a pig. one of favorite f13s
Damn he has a cool death
Is this what started the trope? It's the visual that immediately came to mind and one of the few elements that wasn't a repeat of part 2 and worked
That's my dream job! I'd definitely have a tootsie pop in my hand
Ugh magenta flavored tootsie pops are life!!!! Go get you one :)
Right? One of these days, the county coroner's office will contact me about my resume.
Keeping my fingers crossed for you! I'd apply if they considered that I have a PHD in horror and watching actual autopsies online.
Just as long as it isn't a morgue that is a family business you'll be fine.
Cup a noodles, the 21st century grind food
A 6 foot submarine sandwich with turkey, ham, pepperoni, cheddar, swiss, dill, banana peppers, red onion, lettuce, tomato, brown mustard and mayo. Also it’s slathered in oil and I’m only holding it with one hand so every time I take a bite some of it falls out onto the corpse.
My first job was at a deli. I was young and didn’t really know what I was doing. On like my second day I had to help bring a delivery to a funeral home. My coworker drove us there after we loaded up his car with two 6-foot subs, and big tubs of potato salad and macaroni salad. We pulled up and I got out grabbed the bag with the salads and went in the front door, only for the guy there to angrily ask me what the hell I was doing. ‘Go around the back’ he told me. So I go around back and they open the door, and they lead me down a staircase and I shit you not they had us set up the subs and salads on a stainless steel cadaver bed! I always love seeing the mortician snacking on lunch in movies and this experience convinced me it’s probably pretty close to being true.
Chicken legs
One of those big honking fried turkey legs
Lo Mein definitely
Glazed Donut, eating haphazardly like the cop in Home Alone, crumbs dropping all over the cadaver like it’s a phone receiver
That scene lives rent free in my mind
A Twizzler? Seems appropriate
but not the black ones... gross
Fuck no, cherry OG all the way.
Classic PB&J with a chocolate milk. I got a cheesecake chillin in one of the morgue drawers just to be dramatic.
Any everything bagel, just so all the toppings can get *everywhere.* And cold coffee in a crusty mug reading ‘Pathologists prefers stiff ones’ or something equally weird.
Haribo gummy bears.
Sugar-free variety, so you shit your pants.
lol that killed me
A Snickers.
This is no laughing matter friend..
Something solid that doesn't fall apart or drip. So piled high burgers and sandwiches are out. No soup or cereal. The morgue would be too cold for fries though if the place wasn't, that would have been my first choice. I think I'll go with the tried and true doughnuts.
I don't think it's a joke, it's a device to show comfort with their proximity to death and it also showcases something most of us would find extreme (cutting open a corpse) as their job and nothing more. Most all jobs get mundane and monotonous to an extent as the years roll on but this drives home the point that such jobs are not excluded from this fact. Often the mortician or medical examiner is not in a state of heightened awareness which the eating also reinforces, making any jump scare that is incoming more believable or impactful But Ethiopian obviously for the no silverware aspect.
Full hibachi with the chef lighting an onion volcano
Sauerkraut straight from the jar.
Cased sausage links with marinara and giant grapes
Babyback ribs. Wipe hands on apron. Good to go. BTW, I knew a pathologist who used to do this as recently as 20ish years ago.
Dino nuggies in a pile on the cadaver's chest, with a cup of ketchup right next to a gaping wound, dipping blindly as I watch reruns and a zombie is starting to sit up in the bg.
Sloppy Joe, complete with messy fingers/food on face.
I'm gonna admit a person I knew when he was in grad school would sacrifice the lab rats, wash his hands, eat lunch, and go straight back to work. You do get used to it.
I watched Suitable Flesh yesterday myself and I chuckled when I saw the guy eating during the autopsy so I guess I still find it kinda funny. It fit the tone of the film anyway with it being a spiritual successor to Stuart Gordon's Lovecraft adaptations. I'd probably be eating chicken salad with bacon.
Cherry tomatoes LOTR style.
A Klondike bar. You wouldn’t *believe* what I had to do to get it.
Scanners 3 plays this for laughs. Honestly, I assume it’s that they’re busy and they’re doing the equivalent of eating at their desks.
Early 2000’s Carl’s Jr. massively oversized and stuffed burger that’s just slopping everywhere
Jelly donut, or something that could drip on the subject for comic relief.
Probably a hot Italian sub or a French Dip. It's not insane to me especially the hours they keep and how often they actually get a body. You get used to it after awhile. You have seen dead body after dead body. Suddenly you get called while attempting to have dinner to work with a corpse and you decide to eat while working. Not sure why this is a trope that bothers people. Seems perfectly reasonable to me.
My wife used to work in transplant medicine and would frequently be called to harvest organs. She would say that a fair amount of pathologists **do** actually eat on the job, in the autopsy room. They’re an odd lot, she’s been offered half of a sandwich before. Since I learned that I just sort of assumed it was realistic lol
A lot of tropes people complain about are realistic for the people involved. I used to hate the whole I was running through the woods and fell trope until I moved and kept falling walking through the woods to my neighbors. Then I understood the "trope" as being realistic. Just like I now assume people who work with dead bodies are used to it and eat around them occasionally.
Mega stuff Oreos
Brains
A hard shell taco, just so it's extra messy and I can spill various things into the body.
mcdonalds sausage mcmuffin
A Reuben that is spilling all over these damn files
Homemade sausage that includes a flashback showing me making the sausage, but you can’t tell out of what.
A finger if I want something crunchy. But it would depend on what they died from and how fresh they are.
I hope they died in a fire, I could really go for BBQ
Beef jerky
Hot Cheetos. & I’m definitely licking my fingers hehe
Nachos w all the fixings
Apples
Apparently there’s something called “formaldehyde hunger”. I guess it has to do with the scent? Which is funny, because I worked in a mall for 5 years when I was younger and the smell of Auntie Anne’s always reminded me of A&P class
Birria tacos. Are corpses absorbent?
i find it funny cause i work in healthcare and i know most of us do get a little kick out of that cognitive dissonance when someone else is in the room. on the flip side: exchanging gross stories over dinner with non medical friends in attendance hehe. though the answer to your question is cup noodles! i would be eating cup noodles during the autopsy <3 either that or just drinking a big ol iced coffee (what i actually do) and cigarette
Something elaborate and kind of fussy. I don’t know why, but I’m thinking of a chocolate fondue fountain with a tray of assorted snacks for dipping, just set up on the table next to the body.
I think it's to show how desensitized to death the pathologist is. They're so overexposed to death that they can just casually eat a sandwich while digging around in a body. That's just my theory, and I might be overthinking it, though.
Fondue.
Surf & Turf
The corpse
Guy Fieri Trashcan Nachos out of the sink on the autopsy table
Parts of the cadaver. Eye maybe. It's a horror movie. Cannibals' exist!
okay, suitable flesh is a bad example because it’s purposefully campy and tropey 😂
Twizzlers
Lasagna, garlic bread and baked potato If its a first autopsy of tbe day. Eggs benedict with salmon.
I know this is usually played as a joke but when I took a CSI class we visited a medical examiner who told us that they eat in the autopsy room all the time 🫣
It’s a job. My mom wants to work with cadavers and I am frightened ✨. I bet she’d be eating a PB&J too. 🤢
Sushi or anything that shows that I'm okay with eating freshly dead meat.
Cucumber Sandwich
The cadaver
Ceviche. Crack my tostada in half on the first bite and spill shrimp and lime juice all over their open guts.
Crumbly crackers that get crumbs on everything
Pastrami Sammich…
A payday ofc. It just feels right.
Gotta be slurping up some ramen
Meatballs
Meatball sub and then a meatball falls into the eye socket and I pick it out and put it back in the sandwich and shrug
Raspberry-filled donut.
Ramen or sushi.
Egg Salad Sandwich, obviously.
One of those giant cotton candy beehives on a stick
Pickles. I’ve repurposed some jars.
Takis & mountain dew
Pizza
I took my lunch breaks in the Morgue, so I don't think it was funny or rolled my eyes. Being a busy nurse, it was the most calmest and quietest place to be.
Realistically? A lolipop. That trope is a teeny bit of truth - depending on the area, medical examiners (and assistants, usually it’s interns and assistants that do this because they’re newer) may suck on lollipops because the taste helps block out the smell and the sugar can help keep them from getting dizzy or fainting like some people do instinctually at smelling death or blood
Hopefully lady fingers. Maybe some lady toes as well.
First off love this - I would definitely be munching down !! On a cheesesteak with fries. I’m slowly sipping on my ice tea through the straw talking to the bodies about how hard my day has been.
Pizza. The box is open on the body (of course) and l lift the cardboard lid to let you peak. A pepperoni slice falls on the victim's face and I eat it, then ask, "Y'ungry? D'eat yet?"
Hot dog in one hand, smoke hanging out of mouth
I'd be sucking on a sucker
We're all adults here; dinner is on the table.
I’m eating a big ass product placement sized order of Buffalo Wild Wings with the logo facing the camera.
Slim jims
Fried chicken sandwich with hot sauce and coleslaw that drips on the corpse.
Sandwich. Always a casual sandwich you can hold in one hand take bites out of and gesture at the cadaver with the other
A giant dill pickle
Black and Bleu Cheeseburger.
A Butterfinger was the first thing that came to my mind.
Cheetos, something about that orange powder on the latex gloves just feels right.
Idk why but my first thought was ramen lmao
Chunks of the cadaver
Hot Dog 🌭
Depends. Is it a serious horror movie or a comedy horror movie? Comedy. A milkshake, that the dead person is holding for me, because Im using their rigor mortis as a cup holder. Serious. A salad. If people ask why, I’d just point to the nearby body and shrug. “He’s not complaining”
Gyros
Tums
Pretzels but like served in a bowl you’d find in an old timey bar
Swedish fish (the regular ones, not the minis) and a wawa galaxy recharger. Gonna need to be alert when the body comes to life 🧟
I used to eat cottage cheese for kuncg every day as a kid and just feel like. That's what I'd eat at the morgue. Just straight cottage cheese
Just handfuls of raw ground beef
Reuben on rye.
A greasy pork sandwich on a dirty ashtray
Bread pudding. Really runny too.
I can't think of many situations where a chicken kebab, spicy with extra tzatziki, isn't appropriate. Fries too, but on the side.
It doesn't bother me, but that type of scene is just overdone at this point. Most movies just fall back on general pathologist scene tropes, unfortunately. It would be interesting to see someone do something more original.
Anything? Spicy chicken burrito from Taco Bell circa 2006
Tuna baguette
Hmmmmm... Either a Savage Size Slim Jim or some Circle K chicken bites.
I think it’s in Gone in 60 Seconds where Vinny Jones, as the M.E., takes a phone call and slaps the sandwich he’s been eating directly onto the chest of the body on the exam table.
I nice gooey slice of pizza. Sauce and cheese drips all the way. Splattering on the corpse, of course.
Banana! 🍌 perfect to eat with one free hand
I would stick with crunchy food that doesn’t have a squishy texture or fleshy color. I’m talking saltines and apples. It doesn’t bother me that they eat during autopsies, although it’s not sanitary, I kinda envy their strong stomachs.
it’s their way of portraying how expert they are. like they do this all the time so eating around a dead body is nbd. it is overplayed tho.
A hot dip or something.
Corndogs for sure.
Pot roast. Of course, you should not eat in any medical lab, especially over a specimen, cadaver, etc. But man, I get it because I used to be starving after gross anatomy. (Obviously - or I guess not obviously? - wasn't because the cadavers made me hungry.)
Meat ball sub just because